Motivation Archives - Page 140 of 146

ASAP — Here’s What It REALLY Means

May 29, 2006 by Liz

(Updated in 2020)

What Does It Mean?

You’re working on a deadline project. One large part is due at 10 a.m.; the rest goes at 3 p.m. Your day is “Goldilocks just right.” Well, just right if no monkeys come, and no alligators raise their ugly heads.

You get a call asking a favor ASAP. When will you do it?

ASAP is always later, usually LAST.

A real-time deadline always comes first. It has a win or lose line.

ASAP has an “out” of “possible is when I have time.”

ASAP to the speaker means “As Soon As you can Push it through.”

But to the listener it means, “As Soon As the Pressure’s off.”

Unless the person asking wields great power, ASAP will always lose.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Photo by Niklas Kickl on Unsplash

Great Find: Go Give It Your 75%

May 29, 2006 by Liz

Before You Go Back

As you think about how shorter work weeks feel longer, read this

Great Find: Thank you for coming to work. Now scram!
Type of Article: Report on productivity
Permalink: http://positivesharing.com/2006/03/committed/
Target Audience: Everyone who works

Content:Alexander Kjerulf has done the research. In companies that shortened the work week from 40 to 30 hours NO productivity was lost. Doesn’t surprise me. How about you? Want the details? Click the title shot below to get the facts.

Thanks Alexander, for proving what we already suspected — we do things other than work 25% of the time.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Bloggy Question 13 — The Incredible Culture

May 28, 2006 by Liz

Incredible

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week, I offer this Blogging Question.

This one starts with a quote from famed choreographer Kenny Ortega, who directed High School Musical, Disney Channel’s incredibly-popular DVD movie that’s a cross between Grease and Dirty Dancing. I found the quote in this weeks’ TV Guide Magazine.

Ortega says, “When I went into rehearsals with the cast, I discovered this incredible group of young people who were so bonded, who so liked one another, who were so ready to have the bar raised and do anything it took to make something special. they came to work on fire. That’s something you can’t buy, teach or direct.”

I’ve felt that at places I’ve worked. It IS incredible. It’s like magic.

What makes a place a culture like that? How does it start? What keeps it going?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Critical Skill 5B: Sparking Spectacular Ideas

May 22, 2006 by Liz

Spectacular Ideas

Do you recognize where we are? We’ve been here before. This is the place where I tell you that ideas are already in your head, that it’s a matter of letting yourself have them — not shutting them out. It’s when I remind you that you can be an idea magnet again. I tell you that ideas are waiting for you. I ask you if you’ve started seeing and hearing them.

Whew! Now that the déjà vu is over. We can get on with sparking spectacular ideas.

Caution: Now Entering Liz Think Zone

[Read more…]

Ideas in Your Refrigerator

May 16, 2006 by Liz

You Know You’re Procrastinating When . . .

. . . cleaning the refrigerator takes on a new and miraculous sense of urgency with a heavenly glow.

Go ahead give in and do it, but don’t lose to procrastination. Turn that refrigerator chore into an exploration for ideas. Here are three things you might think about.

What is your customer experience of the products that you are tossing out? Can you use those experiences to seed an article for your blog?
Refrigerators are filled with products. How do the companies who make those products promote them? Can you twist any of their ideas into ways to promote your business or your blog?
Is there a brand in there you are attached to? What do you value about that brand? Can you put your feelings into words? How can you use that brand value you feel to strengthen your personal brand and the brand experience people have when they meet you?

Procrastination just became an idea session, and on top of that you’ve cleaned your refrigerator! That’s productivity where you could have been doing what I’ve done — standing in front of an open refrigerator door thinking about how the light goes on and off.

Bet you can think of more ideas to find inside of that Big Box. How about sharing some with us?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
DonÃ¢â¬â¢t Fear the Blank Screen Ã¢â¬â Be a Miner
Exploring for Ideas at Technorati
Eye-Deas 1: Have You Started Seeing Things?
More ideas in the Idea Bank category and in Writing Power, Thinking Outside the Box, Customer Think, and Brand You Series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE

Critical Skill4: Part 3-A Virtual Process

May 14, 2006 by Liz

Picking Up the Gauntlet

If you’re following the soap opera that is Successful Blog, I’m halfway through writing Critical Skill 5 on Originality, as you might know, but along the way I was interrupted with a challenge. Ariane Benefit from NeatLiving.Net wrote an in-depth comment about process and how it works for her, which ended with these statements.

So basically I see the rules you presented that work so well in a corporate setting actually have their counterpart in the virtual, ultimately highly democratic world of blogging.

. . . if my post inspires you to write the virtual version . . . it was worth it. — from a comment exchange on Critical Skill 4: Part2-Designing a Complex Process

I really wanted to leave them on the page and continue on with the piece on originality. It was hard enough writing about process in the brick and mortar world. Still the comment stayed with me. It followed me around the house . . . and popped into my mind every time I went to write about anything else. After all, it had two things going for it. Ariane Benefit is a reader and I have a really hard time walking away from a delicious challenge like that — even when I know it will involve close contact between my head and a few brick walls I don’t need. [Read more…]