Stop Stockpiling – The Art of Tackling Small Tasks with the 2-Minute Rule and Batching
Stop Stockpiling The Art of Tackling Small Tasks with the 2-Minute Rule and Batching by Michael Hoffman Many of us have developed a habit of stock-piling small tasks and decisions, thinking we’ll get to them eventually. Whether it’s not taking a decision on an email or reading a document without highlighting and putting notes in […]
URGENT AND IMPORTANT: 10 Daily Tasks You Can’t Afford to Ignore
URGENT AND IMPORTANT: 10 Daily Tasks You Can’t Afford to Ignore by Michael Hoffman Managing our daily tasks effectively is crucial to maintaining productivity and seizing opportunities. As professionals, we often juggle numerous responsibilities, and failing to prioritize the right tasks can lead to immediate and significant consequences. In LeanMail training, I am often asked […]
Is There Good Stress?
Is There Good Stress? by Michael Hoffman I just read another article where the author, backed up by degrees in psychology, explained that stress can be a good thing and that we shouldn’t — well, get stressed by stress. I think that the main message of transforming stress into positive energy is excellent. Agreed. But here’s […]
Managing Emails (in Outlook) Is Simple — Once You Understand Three Things
Managing Emails (in Outlook) Is Simple — Once You Understand Three Things by Michael Hoffman For many, managing an inbox is an agonizing Sisyphean task – or at least unpleasant and inefficient. But really, it’s quite simple, and can be enormously efficient if you embrace three important concepts. Before we get to those concepts, however, let’s […]
ActiveWords
ActiveWords Assign words to actions on your computer. Why write a paragraph when you can insert it automatically by typing one single word? Besides text substitution, ActiveWords opens documents, folders, web pages, and starts programs instantly. Just tap a few letters on your keyboard and whatever you need magically appears. ActiveWords is THE productivity tool […]
6 Reasons Why You Should Not Implement LeanMail In Your Organization
6 Reasons Why You Should Not Implement LeanMail In Your Organization by Michael Hoffman 1. Email management solutions are basically digital paper shuffler. Myth: LeanMail probably organizes email and adds more bureaucracy to an already bureaucratic process. I have enough add-ins my kitchen drawer already. Myth Buster: LeanMail is not an organizer — though it will help you become more organized. […]
9 Tips for Working from Home
9 Tips Working From Home by Michael Hoffman There are oodles of tips on the Net for working from home. Here is a compact version. 1. Create a morning and closing routine Routines are important because they prime us for jumping into our work and help us transition back to our personal life, respectively. There are […]
How to squeeze more out of your employees – and have them thank you for it.
How to squeeze more out of your employees – and have them thank you for it by Michael Hoffman No one cares about how well employees manage their inbox. Not the leadership. Not employees themselves. But here is why everyone should: Fixing it will take two hours. Keeping it fixed, another two hours over a couple […]
Errors that LeanMail novices make in the planning step
Errors that LeanMail novices make in the planning step by Michael Hoffman Follow-up; Read; Read and revert; Call; are a few of the typical entries that many LeanMail novices write as Next Actions. At the time you write them, they make perfect sense because at that particular moment you were immersed in the details of what it was you were supposed to do. […]
How to Run an Effective Daily Stand-up Meeting
How to Run an Effective Daily Stand-Up Meeting by Michael Hoffman I was recently requested to suggest how to run an effective daily stand-up meeting. It dawned on me that we had not articulated the process in our own company so all the more reason to explicitly formulate this important morning staple. The Goal The goal […]
Lacking Discipline? Get Values Cheerleaders
Lacking Discipline? Get Values Cheerleaders by Michael Hoffman I’ve been flying for over 50 years. How a plane defies gravity with its own massive weight along with the weight of passengers, baggage and freight is, for me, always mind-boggling. Every time I fly. Core values of flight An airplane is designed and constructed by teams of thousands of individuals meticulously following an explicitly detailed […]
A Simple Rule to Run Effective Meetings
A Simple Rule to Run Effective Meetings by Michael Hoffman Ask your team to identify their biggest productivity killer and inevitably two issues will rise to the top of the list: managing their inboxes and their useless meeting schedules. I’ll tackle the former in a future post. For now, I’d like to focus on increasing the […]
