7 Qualities of Incredibly Productive People

Jeff Haden, Inc.

Some people get more done than others--a lot more.

Sure, they work hard. And they work smart. But they possess other qualities that make a major impact on their performance.

They do the work in spite of disapproval or ridicule.

Work too hard, strive too hard, appear to be too ambitious, try to stand out from the crowd. It's a lot easier and much more comfortable to reel it in to ensure you fit in.

Pleasing the (average-performing) crowd is something remarkably productive people don't worry about. (They may think about it, but then they keep pushing on.)

They hear the criticism, they take the potshots, they endure the laughter or derision or even hostility--and they keep on measuring themselves and their efforts by their own standards.

And, in the process, they achieve what they want to achieve.

They see fear the same way other people view lunch.

One of my clients is an outstanding--and outstandingly successful--comic. Audiences love him. He's crazy good.

Yet he still has panic attacks before he walks onstage. He knows he'll melt down, sweat through his shirt, feel sick to his stomach, and all the rest. It's just the way he is.

So, just before he goes onstage, he takes a quick shower, puts on fresh clothes, drinks a bottle of water, jumps up and down and does a little shadowboxing, and out he goes.

He's still scared. He knows he'll always be scared. He accepts it as part of the process. Pre-show fear is like lunch: It's going to happen.

Anyone hoping to achieve great things gets nervous. Anyone trying to achieve great things gets scared.

Productive people aren't braver than others; they just find the strength to keep moving forward. They realize fear is paralyzing while action creates confidence and self-assurance.

They can still do their best on their worst day.

Norman Mailer said, "Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day."

Remarkably successful people don't make excuses. They forge ahead, because they know establishing great habits takes considerable time and effort. They know how easy it is to instantly create a bad habit by giving in--even just this one time.

They see creativity as the result of effort, not inspiration.

Most people wait for an idea. Most people think creativity happens. They expect a divine muse will someday show them a new way, a new approach, a new concept.

And they wait and wait and wait.

Occasionally, great ideas do just come to people. Mostly, though, creativity is the result of effort: toiling, striving, refining, testing, experimenting... The work itself results in inspiration.

Remarkably productive people don't wait for ideas. They don't wait for inspiration. They know that big ideas most often come from people who do, not people who dream.

They see help as essential, not weakness.

Pretend you travel to an unfamiliar country, you know only a few words of the language, and you're lost and a little scared.

Would you ask for help? Of course. No one knows everything. No one is great at everything.

Productive people soldier on and hope effort will overcome a lack of knowledge or skill. And it does, but only to a point.

Remarkably productive people also ask for help. They know asking for help is a sign of strength--and the key to achieving more.

They start...

At times, you will lack motivation and self-discipline. At times, you'll be easily distracted. At times, you'll fear failure or success.

Procrastination is a part of what makes people human; it's not possible to completely overcome any of those shortcomings.

Wanting to put off a difficult task is normal. Avoiding a challenge is normal.

But think about a time you put off a task, finally got started, and then, once into it, thought, "I don't know why I kept putting this off--it's going really well. And it didn't turn out to be nearly as hard as I imagined."

It never is.

Highly productive people try not to think about the pain they'll feel in the beginning; they focus on how good they will feel once they're engaged and involved.

And they get started. And then they don't stop.

...And they finish.

Unless there's a really, really good reason not to finish--which, of course, there almost never is.

Read more: http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/7-qualities-of-uber-productive-people.html#ixzz2Kt0fkOXI

5 Things You Should Be Doing If You’re Unemployed

By ZipRecruiter

You know the saying, “Applying to jobs is a full-time job”?

Don’t listen to it.

What You Should Be Doing If You’re Unemployed

Applying to jobs you’re not qualified for (which 50% of job seekers reportedly do!) is counter-productive to your job search. Competition is too fierce. Even qualified applicants aren’t getting callbacks. So, stop applying to so many jobs and allocate time each week to becoming more hirable. Here’s how…

1. Volunteer

Volunteering can increase your chances of being hired if you’re strategic about it.Unemployed teacher? Help out with after school programs or volunteer to be a coach’s assistant. Web designer? Find a local non-profit in desperate need of a re-design and offer your services pro bono. By volunteering somewhere relevant, you’ll keep your skills fresh while enhancing your resume.

2. Keep Your Skills Current

If you lack a skill commonly required for jobs you’re seeking, spend time each day building that skill. Take advantage of numerous free resources online, including tutorials, e-books, and how-to videos. If you’d rather have more of a class setup, then look for free or affordable adult education classes in your area. Alternatively, if you already possess the necessary skills but haven’t been practicing, the do so. Skill atrophy is a huge concern for hiring managers, so practice and get yourself ready for pre-employment skills tests.

3. Network

There are two parts to networking: reconnecting with your old contacts and forming new ones. Depending on where you are in your career, reconnecting might mean contacting professors, college advisers, and internship supervisors, or it might mean getting in touch with old colleagues, bosses, and business acquaintances.

Find them, e-mail them, call them. Ask them to coffee. Ask how they are (networking is social, after all) and let them know the specifics of your job search (industry, location, etc.). See if they know of anything or anyone.

Most importantly, follow up!

At a temporary dead-end with your current contacts? Make new ones. Go to networking events sponsored by your university, industry, city, and so on. And look beyond traditional networking events. Consider going to lectures, neighborhood council meetings, even community bar crawls (go easy on the sauce). Each of these provides an opportunity to meet people with similar interests, and you can have fun in the process.

Again, follow up!

4. Freelance

Some job seekers are opposed to anything that’s not a full-time job. If this sounds like you, it’s time to change your mindset. Freelancing is a great way to boost your skills, resume, portfolio, professional network, income, and confidence. Search for freelance openings here.

5. Build An Online Presence

Get found online. Start a blog, spruce up your social network profiles, create an online portfolio to showcase your work. Find companies you’re interested in working for, subscribe to their blogs, and follow them on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Find decision-makers at those companies and follow them as well. Learn what they’re talking about, do a little research, and then engage with them online. Impress them with your interest and insights.

Worst case scenario — you’ll learn what’s important to them and use this information to customize your application when a job opens up.

Better case scenario — you’ll establish a rapport with someone who will recommend you for a position and/or tell you about unpublished openings.

Best case scenario — you’ll impress someone so much over time that they’ll create a job for you or bring you in for an exploratory interview.

What are you doing to become more hireable?

5 Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Skills

Jeff Haden

He may be an American hero and the first man to break the sound barrier, but years ago Chuck Yeager sent me on the wrong path.

Okay, maybe it was my fault. I read Chuck's autobiography and somehow came away with the (hey, I was young) impression that great pilots become great pilots by taking great risks: Superior skills could only be acquired by constantly pushing the envelope, intentionally crossing the line between control and potential disaster and reeling it back in....

So I assumed becoming not just a good but a great motorcycle racer required taking great risks. Hey, I figured, just ride WFO and by hanging it out over the edge and pulling it back in enough times time I would either become a great rider or...

I tried not to think about the "or."

Eventually -- way longer than it should have taken -- I was forced to think about the "or" and realize guts had nothing to do with going fast. Maybe it was riding for another hour with (as I later discovered) two broken wrists. Or maybe it was touching an unpadded knee to the pavement at 120 mph and seeing stark visual proof that a kneecap is a bone.

Or maybe it was when I realized I didn't think of crashing as an "if" but as a "when."

I never became a great racer, but I did learn what most successful people -- in any field -- already know: Bravery isn't a requirement for accomplishment. Talented, highly skilled people don’t take big risks, yet they still manage to accomplish big things.

How? They prepare. They train. They constantly experiment and adapt and refine, refine, refine. Successful people gain superior skills not by breaking through the envelope but by approaching and then slowly, incrementally expanding the boundaries of the envelope.

The key to improvement is making small, smart changes, evaluating the results, discarding what doesn't work, and further refining what does work. When you constantly modify and refine something you already do well, you can do it even better.

Say you want to improve a certain skill. Here are simple techniques:

Go a lot faster. Force yourself to go much faster than normal. You'll screw up, and in the process you'll adapt and find new improvements.

Go a lot slower. Force yourself to go slower and you’ll identify techniques or strategies that hold you back. Plus you can experiment with new techniques that aren't apparent at normal speed.

Break a complex task into smaller parts. Almost every task includes a series of discrete steps. Pick one step, deconstruct it, master it... then put the whole task back together. Then choose another component part to deconstruct. Incrementally improve enough steps and the overall improvement can be huge.

Measure differently. Pick a different measurement than you normally use to analyze your performance. Measure speed instead of accuracy, for example. Or use video or audio for feedback. (Watching yourself isn't particularly fun but you'll quickly see you a number of things you never realized you could do differently.)

Practice perfectly. Focus on performing a task as well as you possibly can. When you try to do your best even the smallest mistakes are obvious. Then you can learn from those mistakes, adapting and modifying your techniques so you constantly, even if only incrementally, improve.

You can extend this to almost anything. Whether it's a physical task, making sales calls, giving presentations, managing employees, conducting interviews... any task can be performed more effectively and efficiently.

Don’t just push the envelope until it breaks... or until it breaks you. Tweak, refine, and reinvent a skill that you already perform well... with a little time and a lot of focus, you'll perform incredibly well.

How to Refresh Your Brain - in 10 Minutes

Francesca Fenzi – Inc.com Staff

When you go from one task to the next--all day long--your mind constantly races to catch up. Hit the reset button with this underrated trick.

Andy Puddicombe is a former Buddhist monk and co-founder of Headspace, an entrepreneurial venture designed to demystify meditation and make it easily accessible to all audiences. In a recent TED talk, Puddicombe promotes an idea that almost sounds too easy to be true: refresh your mind in just 10 minutes a day and you might be happier at work.

Puddicombe seeks to provide “meditation for the modern world,” eliminating stereotypes of incense and cross-legged monks. And he might just be on to something. Here are two problems that plague modern-day workers--and how Headspace’s bite-sized meditation plan can help. 

Problem #1: Inability to Focus

“The average office worker changes windows [on her computer] 37 times an hour,” Headspace’s head of research Nick Begley says in a meditation tutorial.

According to Begley, when your mind changes gears that rapidly, part of your brain is still engaged in the previous task and you don’t have all of the attention and resources necessary to concentrate on the current task. This slows down productivity and reduces your ability to filter relevant information from irrelevant information. 

Problem #2: Stress

When people get stressed, there is a part of the brain called the amygdala that fires up the “fight or flight” part of the nervous system that helps you make quick, impulsive decisions.

“It signals to our hormonal system to secrete adrenaline and cortisol and increases our heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure, so we can escape this immediate physical danger,” says Begley.

The problem arises when there is no immediate physical danger--when, say, you’ve forgotten to hit “save” on an important document and your computer crashes, or you arrive unprepared for an important business meeting. The “fight or flight” impulse is not actually helpful in those situations and merely puts undue stress on the body, Begley explains.  

The Solution

Refreshing your brain is easier than you think. Here's the first and only step: Do nothing.

Puddicombe recommends simply setting aside 10 minutes each day to quiet your mind. Practice observing thoughts and anxieties without passing judgment--simply experience them. Focus on the present moment and nothing else.

“We can’t change every little thing that happens to us,” he acknowledges, “but we can change how we experience it.”

7 Must-Have Project Management Skills for IT Pros

A good--or bad--project manager can make the difference between a project coming in on time and on budget and it being a failure. How can you spot a good project manager? CIO.com talked to experts and IT executives to find out.

By Jennifer Lonoff Schiff

CIO — Just because someone has the title of "project manager" does not mean he knows how to effectively manage projects, as many CIOs and other IT executives have learned the hard way.

So how can you tell a good project manager from a bad one? CIO.com surveyed project management experts and executives to learn what skills are required to successfully manage projects--that is, to ensure that projects are kept on track and stay on budget.

Here are seven skills project managers need in order to be effective and successful:

Skill No. 1: Be highly organized and a good multi-tasker. A good project manager knows how to "manage multiple projects or tasks and track issues on a daily basis," says Hilary Atkinson, director of the Project Management Office at Force 3, a business solutions provider.

The difference between the success or failure of a project is often "the difference between a project manager who is highly organized and one who is not," she says. "If a project manager is spending more time trying to figure out where information is rather than productively managing their project, failure is eminent."

Skill No. 2: Take charge and know how to lead. "Project managers need to be good leaders," says Lew Sauder, senior project manager Geneca, which develops custom enterprise software. Specifically, "project management is about leading stakeholders and vendors to a successful outcome," states Brian Lee, partner atNavigate, a management consulting firm.

"Projects need to be led in a fashion that builds consensus while also fleshing out the real risks and roadblocks," he says. "Effective project managers paint a picture of a better tomorrow and inspire confidence in their team's abilities to realize that vision. They build credible relationships with key stakeholders to ensure alignment to the project's objectives and exude the confidence necessary to hold everyone participating in the project accountable."

Skill No. 3: Be an effective communicator. "Being an outstanding communicator requires the project manager to consistently ensure they are clearly understood by all stakeholders; that all stakeholders understand what is expected of them throughout the project lifecycle; and that all stakeholders communicate effectively with one another as well as with the project manager," says Dr. Greg Thomas, CMC, PMP and CEO of Roos Technologies International, a management consulting firm.

"Project managers need to be able to communicate status changes, good news and bad news to all levels of staff across different departments," says Nandi Hayes, an agent at Vitamin T, a talent agency for digital creatives.

"They also need to be able to distinguish who needs to know what, when they need to know it and how that information will be delivered," she says. "For example, a slight scheduling delay may need to be communicated to internal teams but not to the client if the key client review dates are not affected."

Skill No. 4: Know how and when to negotiate. "Project managers must be excellent negotiators," says Brock Boddie, an associate program director at Huge, a global digital agency. "You're very often dealing with people who have divergent interests from your own or who appear to have no interest in understanding what you're trying to accomplish and why they should help you or fully participate," he says.

"A good project manager will invest time to understand and negotiate these relationships and figure out these stakeholder's interests, so that she can triangulate what will make her project continue to move forward. Without these negotiating skills, you may spoil or ignore these critical relationships, making project success highly unlikely," Boddie says.

Skill No. 5: Be detail-oriented. "Project management is all about the details--big ones and small ones," says Aziz Kara, head of Product Management and Design at Xtreme Labs, a mobile app and product developer. Therefore, project managers must be "meticulous about managing the details of every project and the impact each detail may have on the overall project success. Details can make or break a project, and the effective PM recognizes that."

Skill No. 6: Recognize and solve problems quickly. "Inevitably, there will be times when problems and obstacles arise that involve immediate solutions," notes Michael Pesochinsky, cofounder and vice-president of GovernmentBargains.com, a free site that compiles and provides information about government auctions. "How a project manager handles these problems will separate him from the others."

Skill No. 7: Possess the necessary technical skills. To be a good project manager, you "must have solid knowledge of the platforms, software and programs that your company regularly works with, even if your job is not actually technical," says Joel Gross, the founder and CEO of Coalition Technologies, a Web design and marketing firm.

And "a great project manager needs to have enough technical knowledge about areas of the project to be able to assign themselves to some of the tasks," adds Bob Herman, the owner of Tropolis Group, which provides IT, mobile and social media management services to companies. Why? "Assigning yourself to some of the project tasks and successfully completing those tasks on time helps you earn the respect you need to successfully manage the project team."

Resume Critique Checklist

By Kim Isaacs, Monster Resume Expert

Resumes normally get less than a 15-second glance at the first screening. If someone has asked you to review his resume and you want to help him ensure it gets read -- or want to know if your own is up to par -- be sure you can answer yes to the following questions: 

First Impression

• Does the resume look original and not based on a template?
• Is the resume inviting to read, with clear sections and ample white space?
• Does the design look professional rather than like a simple typing job?
• Is a qualifications summary included so the reader immediately knows the applicant's value proposition?
• Is the resume's length and overall appearance appropriate given the career level and objective?

Appearance

• Does the resume provide a visually pleasing, polished presentation?
• Is the font appropriate for the career level and industry?
• Are there design elements such as bullets, bolding and lines to guide readers' eyes through the document and highlight important content?
• Is there a good balance between text and white space?
• Are margins even on all sides?
• Are design elements like spacing and font size used consistently throughout the document?
• If the resume is longer than a page, does the second page contain a heading? Is the page break formatted correctly?

Resume Sections

• Are all resume sections clearly labeled?
• Are sections placed in the best order to highlight the applicant's strongest credentials?
• Is the work history listed in reverse chronological order (most recent job first)?

Career Goal

• Is the career objective included toward the top of the resume in a headline, objective or qualifications summary?
• Is the resume targeted to a specific career goal and not trying to be a one-size-fits-all document?
• If this is a resume for career change, is the current objective clearly stated, along with supporting details showing how past experience is relevant to the new goal?

Accomplishments

• Does the resume include a solid listing of career accomplishments?
• Are accomplishments quantified by using numbers, percentages, dollar amounts or other concrete measures of success?
• Do accomplishment statements begin with strong, varied action verbs?
• Are accomplishments separated from responsibilities?

Relevance

• Is the information relevant to hiring managers' needs?
• Does the resume's content support the career goal?
• Is the resume keyword-rich, packed with appropriate buzzwords and industry acronyms?
• Is applicable additional information, such as awards and affiliations, included, while personal information like marital status, age and nationality unrelated to the job target omitted?

Writing Style

• Is the resume written in an implied first-person voice with personal pronouns, such as I, me and my, avoided?
• Is the content flow logical and easy to understand?
• Is the resume as perfect as possible, with no careless typos or spelling, grammar or syntax errors?

Happy New Year!!

12 Great Motivational Quotes for 2013

by Geoffrey James

This set of inspirational thoughts for the new year will galvanize you into action.

At the start of every year, I create a list of quotes to guide and inspire me for the next 12 months. Here are the quotes I've selected for 2013:

1. "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."
   Napoleon Hill


2. "The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear."
   Brian Tracy


3. "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."
   Dale Carnegie


4. "Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats."
   Og Mandino


5. "A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided."
   Tony Robbins


6. "If you can't control your anger, you are as helpless as a city without walls waiting to be attacked."
   The Book of Proverbs


7. A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves."
   Harvey Mackay


8. "Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience."
   Jack Vance


9. "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live."
   Jim Rohn


10. "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."
    Zig Ziglar


11. "The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying."
    Tom Hopkins


12. "You have everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself."
    Seth Godin