posted at 17:00:32
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Business

The BBC is reporting that we're up to our usual tricks again - working too many hours overtime and not getting paid for it. From the article:

According to the TUC the average amount of unpaid overtime was more than seven hours a week, and workers were missing out on an average of £5,000 of pay.

£5,000? That's a lot of beer tokens!

I've written before about the state of UK working hours and our lack of Lack of enough public holidays in the UK so now it would appear that company's are using the current economic climate to eek even more work out of us.

Great.

We have some of the longest working hours in Europe and now, because we may all lose our jobs at any given moment we feel the need to stay chained to a desk for no extra pay. Plus you may still get made redundant even after all that hard work.

Mr Barber added: "Long hours are bad for people's health, and employers should never forget that each extra hour worked makes people less productive once they are over a sensible working week."

So, if your boss asks you why yo....

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Dec

29th
2008

How to run an appraisal

posted at 09:47:36
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Motivation

Well, New Year coming up so new start and all that eh?

As we move into the new year, we'll all start having to face the prospects of either giving a review or being on the receiving end of one. The following video I stumbled on whilst wandering through YouTube is an excellent example of how a decent appraisal meeting should be run.

Some important points to take away from it:

Appraisals aren't there to look back and apportion blame, they're a tool to discuss how you want to move forwards
Recognise that people may not be comfortable with certain aspects of their working lives and offer them help towards resolving these problems rather than seeing them as a lost cause
Ask for the employee's point of view, don't just say "This is what you're going to do, like it or lump it"

Anyway, sit back and enjoy this short but informative video:

Dec

23rd
2008

Stephen Covey launches a new Community Site

posted at 10:36:27
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Motivation

Stephen Covey has launched a new community site, based around his "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"

From the Stephen Covey Website:

Stephen Covey has announced the official launch of stephencovey.com, a first-of-its-kind social networking and online learning community that gives individuals an opportunity to learn first-hand as he personally teaches them the principles of setting, tracking and achieving personal goals.

By recognizing and embracing the role that social networking communities now have in society, Covey has given individuals the ability to learn and implement his life changing 7 Habits principles. They can now participate in an uplifting and inspiring Web 2.0 setting that is comfortable, where they control the pace and where they can literally interact with other people around the world who are trying to achieve similar goals.

The site allows you to make friends, set goals and start your own groups. Current groups include:

Body Goal Groups
Heart Goal Groups
Mind Goal Groups
Spirit Goal Groups
Life passion groups
Occupation Groups
Geographical Groups
School Groups
Company....

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Dec

22nd
2008

Multitasking revisited: How much time are we wasting?

posted at 10:16:33
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

In an article published in the New York times in October (yes, I'm behind with my blogging, okay?!) entitled "Multitasking Can Make You Lose ... Um ... Focus" the author discusses something we've covered here at Flipping Heck before - how multitasking actually make you more unproductive. See my reviews of review of "The Myth Of Multitasking: How "doing it all" gets nothing done by Dave Creshaw.

From the article:

Although doing many things at the same time - reading an article while listening to music, switching to check e-mail messages and talking on the phone - can be a way of making tasks more fun and energizing, "you have to keep in mind that you sacrifice focus when you do this," said Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist and author of "CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap!" (Ballantine, 2006). "Multitasking is shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession. It gives the illusion that we're simultaneously tasking, but we're really not. It's like playing tennis ....

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Nov

25th
2008

How to run Productive Meetings - Guest post at Simpleology.com

posted at 19:58:28
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I'm famous! Well, sort of.

I was asked by the kind folks at Simpleology to write a guest post on running productive meetings which went gone live a couple of days ago over at the Simpleology blog.

If you haven't heard of Simpleology before basically it's a series of 40 free lessons (with further paid ones available) taken over the course of 40 days.

The lessons cover a variety of subjects such as:

LESSON 1 The First Law of simpleology - The Law of Straight Lines

LESSON 2 The Second Law of simpleology: The Law of Clear Vision

LESSON 3 The 3rd Law of simpleology: The Law of Focused Attention

LESSON 4 The 4th Law of simpleology: The Law of Focused Energy

LESSON 5 The Scientific Formula for Success

LESSON 6 Step 1: See Your Target

LESSON 7 Step 2: Keep it in Your Sights

Each lesson is backed up by a Video and there's further reference material in the "Virtuosity Handbook", audio compaion MP3 and daily email reminders.

I have to ....

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Nov

21st
2008

"Productive" Magazine Launched

posted at 09:12:34
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

Yesterday (yes, I''m a bit slow on the uptake!) saw the launch of "Productive!" magazine, a magazine dedicated to... er... Productivity!

Brought to you by the creator of Nozbe, the magazine''s mission:

Productive Magazine is a platform where the top productivity bloggers will share their best productivity principles and tips'n'tricks. Let's help everyone get more done and be more productive!

The bonus is the magazine's a free download!

I've only had a chance to have a quick look through the magazine (some of us do have to work you know) but it looks really well done - it certainly wouldn''t be out of place on the shelves in my local newsagent - and there''s articles with many well known GTD gurus including >David Allen himself and Leo Balbauta of Zen habits.

So, if you''re into productivity (which I guess you must be if you read this blog!) then head on over to "Productive!" magazine and download your free copy.

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Nov

18th
2008

Shock Horror! Obama may lose Blackberry priviledges!

posted at 09:58:30
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Email

There's a lot of talk at the moment about Barack Obama having to ditch his Blackberry (read the full article "Say Goodbye to BlackBerry? If Obama Has to, Yes He Can" at the New York Times site) when he becomes President and I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.

Having recently sat down to dinner with someone who had "Blackberry Twitch" - you know the sort, the Blackberry's in their pocket and they're itching to look at it but know it'd be considered rude so they develop a nervous tick - and also been to dinner with someone who checked emails whilst they ate (excuse me?) surely it's better to have a focused, non-Blackberry twitching President? I mean, can you imagine him sitting in the Oval office talking to some official whilst browsing his emails? Me neither.

It's probably for the best when you consider that the current administration has potentially lost 5 million (yes, five million) emails - some of which may contain dodgy dealings of White House Staffers:

I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million e-mails lost," Perino told reporters.

The administration was already facing sharp questions about whether top presidential advisers including Karl Rove improperly used Republican National Committee e-mail that the White House ....

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