So I’m going to share a bit of my nerdy side in this next series of posts.  I developed a habit in my senior year in high school from an ongoing assignment my English teacher gave us for the year.  

This may come across as more ranty than I intend, but bear with me (and no, not chainsaw bear, cocaine bear, or even drop bear).

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This is a pattern I have come across through every job I have had and every other aspect of life. I read about it in Effortless - “solve the problem before it happens.” I read about it this morning in The 7 Habits of...

We know the adage “don’t reinvent the wheel,” but do we use that leverage of building on the knowledge of others to our best advantage? I think sometimes we try to be clever and unique (see the last post about keeping things simple) rather than trying to build upon what...

K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple StupidSesame Street SimpleLess is MoreClarity over Cleverness

The Power of Simplicity

There are so many effective ways to say to keep something simple, clear, concise. A new one for me was the “Sesame Street Simple” made popular by the Procter &...

Trust. It is something that comes up when talking about people’s character. It is something most of us want (and/or even expect) in our relationships - family, friends, colleagues. It is something that, when broken, can be difficult, if not impossible, to repair. In ...

Silos are a problem. Not the kind you see on farms (well, I guess those can have issues of their own, but that’s not what I’m talking about). I’m talking about issues with what McKeown calls linear knowledge in Effortless.

Automate. Automate. Automate. I keep coming across this theme more and more frequently, and I have been working to embrace it wherever I can.

I have mentioned this in a few posts, but resting and pacing myself are both things I struggle with. So, reading McKeown’s suggestions in Effortless about establishing lower and upper bounds really spoke to me, “Never less than X, never more than Y.”

Fail Faster. I first encountered this line of thinking when I was working for a non-profit association. Our CEO introduced it to the staff and wanted us to approach all our projects with this concept in mind. At the time, my perfectionist self balked at the idea. Now,...