Productivity and Battery Life
I’ve recently made two changes that have made me surprisingly more productive. The first was switching from my 17-inch MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air. The second was switching to a newer Mifi device to get to the Internet over the cellular network. The commonality between these two changes is they both replaced devices with batteries that normally lasted about 4 hours. The new Mifi and laptop can get 8 to 12 hours of life on a single charge.
When I first bought the MacBook Air, I thought it would be marginally more useful because I wouldn’t have to plug in the laptop as often. Had that been the case, it probably...
Source: Productivity501 - December 20, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Refining Your Online Presence
The results that show up when someone types your name into Google are becoming increasingly important for your career. It wasn’t that long ago that it was rare for a potential employer to search for the name of a candidate. Now it is becoming rare for them NOT to do some type of search.
In many cases, the first page of results for your name are going to be more important than what you put on your resume. It is easy to make a claim on your resume, but what Google says about you will often carry more weight because it isn’t something under your direct control.
However, just because it isn’t under your dire...
Source: Productivity501 - December 6, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Lazy but Talented
While walking back to my hotel from a conference in St. Louis, I saw someone wearing a shirt that said “Lazy but Talented.” I think it was a Nike shirt. I’ve always been impressed with Nike’s advertising, but this slogan didn’t ring true. In the US, we seem to be overly obsessed with talent as if it is the most important part of success. It isn’t that talent is unimportant, but when it really comes down to what will make you successful, being hardworking is much more important. If you have tremendous natural skill, but aren’t willing to work hard, it is easy to be eclipsed by someo...
Source: Productivity501 - November 15, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Multi-tasking Experiment
Many people pride themselves on their ability to multi-task. The problem is that humans are very bad at multi-tasking. I was at a software conference where a presenter was trying to illustrate this through a simple exercise that went like this:
Get 5 to 10 people to stand in a circle and ask them to go through the following sequences: First the alphabet, then count by 3s to 36, then count by 6s to 72. Each person says one item for the sequence and the person on their right says the next. This is pretty easy to do. It only takes a few minutes to go through all the different sequences when they are being done one at a time....
Source: Productivity501 - November 1, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Productivity Source Type: blogs
The Power of Physical Communication
As we become more and more dependent on email, text messaging, Facebook, and Twitter for communicating, it is easy to overlook the power of sending a physical message. Physical messages can be letters, notes, flowers, etc. Anything that is going to have to be actually handled can be physical communication.
Here is an example. I had a relative who was sick and needed a letter from a doctor for some insurance claims. The letter wasn’t a standard form and required the doctor to actually sit down and put some time into writing it. They had been trying for weeks to get the letter. The doctor said he would, but it never g...
Source: Productivity501 - October 18, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
The Future of Work Part II
In our last post, we talked about the future of work and looked at how outsourcing and telecommuting are trends you need to be aware of and prepare for in order to do well in your career. In this post, we are going to look at a few more areas that may dramatically change the way we work in the future.
Education for New Employees
Right now, employers don’t feel that they are getting highly trained employees from university graduates. There are a number of programs that are trying to better align what is taught in college courses with what the business world needs. These efforts may help, but I think we are going to c...
Source: Productivity501 - October 4, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
The Future of Work Part I
Have you ever taken some time to think about what work will look like 5, 10 or even 20 years from now? If you haven’t, it is probably worth the effort because a changing work environment may have dramatic implications for how you are employed in the future. In these two posts, I want to talk about some of the trends I’m seeing and how they may play out in the coming years.
Outsourcing
Companies are getting better and better at spinning off specific business functions and letting them be handled by others. For example, many businesses can’t justify running payroll in-house. It is cheaper to hire a company...
Source: Productivity501 - September 20, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
10 Little Habits
In this post, we are going to look at 10 little habits that can have some big benefits. Often the difference between people who are healthy vs. unhealthy, educated vs. uneducated, rich vs. poor comes down to a bunch of little habits that compound overtime. Because of this, it is worth thinking about the “little” things once in a while and seeing if your individual habits are guiding you toward success or failure in life.
1. Take the stairs
Obviously this isn’t going to work if you are on the 100th floor of an office building, but if you work on the 3rd or 4th floor, taking the stairs can often save you t...
Source: Productivity501 - September 6, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Changing My Reading Habits
Every few years, I have trouble with my eyes getting tired when I’m really busy. For me, “really busy” means spending a lot of time in front of a 30-inch monitor working. The last time this happened, I made some changes to my reading habits. I’m not sure if it contributed to my eyes getting better, but the changes have made my reading much more productive and I wanted to talk about it here.
In the past, I’ve done a lot of reading on the computer. My original theory about why my eyes were getting tired was that staring at the bright screen was just wearing them out. As a result, I was looking ...
Source: Productivity501 - August 16, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Productivity and Finding a Job
In the past month, I’ve had several people contact me for help or advice in finding a job. Typically when I start talking with someone and looking at their resume, the fundamental problem I find is that they think about the whole process from their perspective instead of from the employer’s. If someone is looking at hiring you, they want to know if you are going to be productive for them. They want to know if you are going to be able to make them more money than what you will cost them in salary and benefits.
So how do you show an employer that you can be productive? Here are some tips:
1. Completed Projects
F...
Source: Productivity501 - August 2, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Your Glass Ceiling
Think of someone you know who would be 10 times more successful if they would just follow good advice. Maybe it is a coworker who has a lot of potential if he’d just show up for work on time and comb his hair. Maybe it is a relative who just needs to get some basic money management skills so he or she isn’t always broke. Maybe it is a friend who just isn’t willing to take the risks necessary to apply for a job where his talents could really be used.
My point is that everyone can look around and find people they know who aren’t living up to their full potential because of they way they view life. Ma...
Source: Productivity501 - July 19, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Education for Free
Several months ago, I sat down with my grandmother and looked through some of the old papers she had from her father. My great grandfather did a lot of things. He was a preacher, ran the newspaper and was the lawyer in the small town where they lived. My grandmother was showing me his diplomas and other papers. He had a diploma from college, a diploma from seminary, and a law license.
I noticed that we didn’t have his diploma from law school. When I asked about it, my grandma told me that he never went for a law degree. He was enrolled in law school and after the first semester, a friend dared him to take the bar ex...
Source: Productivity501 - July 5, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Killing off Success to Prepare for the Future
The McDonalds in my town is going to close down for several months. During that time, they are going to tear down the current restaurant and build a new one. The man who owns the McDonalds has another one in a nearby town and he did something similar there a few years ago. Still, it seems like quite a leap of faith to shut down your successful business and the cash flow for a few months in order to be able to serve more customers in the future.
When the iPod Mini was at the peak of its popularity, Apple stopped making it and instead switched to the flash-based iPod Nano. On one hand, it didn’t make sense. They had a...
Source: Productivity501 - June 21, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Productivity-Draining Commute
This weekend I was talking to a couple who had moved to Kansas City about a year ago. They had just decided to move back to the small town where we live. I asked what they thought about living in the “big city” and while they liked most of it, they said the commute time was simply too great. They had moved to Kansas City to be closer to their jobs, but the husband still spent 1.5 hours and often a bit longer each way just getting to and from work. He wasn’t necessarily traveling very far, but with traffic, he was spending 3+ hours a day on the road.
While his commute time was definitely above average, it...
Source: Productivity501 - June 7, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
Productivity-Based Vehicle Shopping
We recently purchased a new vehicle. I don’t particularly like car shopping, but the process of trying to decide what features/capabilities were important to us was interesting. In this post, I wanted to list some of the factors we considered that relate to productivity and time savings with a new car:
1. Range and Fuel Capacity
The time you spend at the pump is time you can’t spend doing something else. Most people look at the MPG a vehicle gets but fewer people look at how far they can get on a single fill-up. Depending on what your time is worth, a vehicle that has a longer range, but just slightly lower MP...
Source: Productivity501 - May 17, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mark Shead Tags: Misc Source Type: blogs
