sharp object

Thanx to Mieko Saito, my MBA classmate.

#100 post

...is full of quotes from articles mentioned in previous post.

Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning.

It's hard to do because maybe, just maybe, that next piece of information will be the key to our success. But our success actually hinges on the opposite: on our willingness to risk missing some information. Because trying to focus on it all is a risk in itself. We'll exhaust ourselves.

The world is changing fast and if we don't stay focused on the road ahead, resisting the distractions that, while tempting, are, well, distracting, then we increase the chances of a crash.

Now is a good time to pause, prioritize, and focus. Make two lists:

List 1: Your Focus List (the road ahead)

What are you trying to achieve? What makes you happy? What's important to you? Design your time around those things. Because time is your one limited resource and no matter how hard you try you can't work 25/8.

List 2: Your Ignore List (the distractions)

To succeed in using your time wisely, you have to ask the equally important but often avoided complementary questions: what are you willing not to achieve? What doesn't make you happy? What's not important to you? What gets in the way?

An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day
Ritual is a secret power to manage one's life.

Managing our time needs to become a ritual too. Not simply a list or a vague sense of our priorities. That's not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day.

STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful.
Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the hours manage you.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

Make Your Place Proud of You.

"Do not let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do." The words are those of John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach. When attempting to do anything new, voices inside us will whisper "No, don't do it." Those who give up listen to such voices; those who persevere pay them no heed. When it comes to making big and bold changes, either in our lives or our careers, there will always be those around us telling us no; it is up to us to heed our own inner yes.

"I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives," said Abraham Lincoln. "I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him."

love it

I've discovered a wonderful source of knowledge recently. It has started with Managerial tip of a day from HBR and now I'm in blogs, reading all the stuff I need to read in order to calm myself.

Here are the links to articles I've just gone through and I'm about to enjoy by reading thourougly:
- Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning.
- An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day
- Make Your Place Proud of You.

These are topics I've been thinking for a while recently. Hoping to find some hints.

PS. Good sign that I've started thinking in English again.

creative

Fabulous!

presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/ethos3/storytelling-101?type=powerpoint

i like the idea and the structure, although the whole appearance is not close to russian presentation style

i like it

We have a bonus collecting system called Mnogo.ru. If you buy with their partners, you receive virtual bonuses you can convert to gifts (provided by partners). The more you collect the more you can get. I use this occasionaly collecting bonuses for buying books with boffo.ru and paying for mobile services and transform them into aeroflot miles to get free ticket.

So, Mnogo.ru has a promotional quizes. You can pass it, receive 20-50 bonuses (the prizes cost more - 800 bonuses for DVD, 1050 bonuses for a jar of coffee)and if you pass it successfully, you can try to get a prize from a partner. So, typical staff - answering simple questionary, you get your bonuses and think for a couple of times about Mnogo.ru itself and its partner.

But let's look deeply. The questions are posted in a way you can easily get an answer (with a link provided to a site you can check info). And that is a great trick - if you can easily increase your chances for grand-prix, you most probably will go for it and check. And get more information about the company.

E.g. What is the price for a model XXX (link to a model)? Of course, you will realize that the price is low and will have more incentives to buy the product.

Or: what is the color of a t-shirt XXX (item nr) at a website (link). You will go, see a t-shirt and may be continue browsing the catalog.

And all it for 2.5% of a DVD!!!

I like it!