How to Be Way More Productive. Wake Up With More Energy Many people feel tired in the morning not because they didn't sleep enough but because they have low blood sugar. You can minimize this by consuming a tablespoon or two of unsweetened almond butter before you go to sleep. It's a very simple way to stabilize your blood sugar. (I've tested this by having a continuous glucose monitor implanted in my side.) Right away, a lot of people will go from feeling groggy to feeling extremely alert when they wake up. Double Your Reading Speed in Five Minutes Write down a sentence, any sentence that has eight to 12 words and fills a single line on a page or screen.
Clear Your Inbox in Half the Time The only consistent way to get to inbox zero is to respond to fewer emails, because each response breeds more email. The first is five.sentenc.es, which gives you a footer that says, "Why is this email five sentences or less? " Boomerang is an extension for Gmail. As told to Inc. editor-at-large Tom Foster. How the Rich Get Rich. John D. Rockefeller, America's first billionaire, said, "If your only goal is to become rich, you'll never achieve it.
" Easy for him to say, but his point is well taken: If the only thing you care about is making money, no matter how much money you make it will never be enough. Still, even though we all define and calculate success differently, most of us would like wealth to factor into our equations. To find out how, check out the 400 Individual Tax Returns Reporting the Largest Adjusted Gross Incomes, an annual report issued by the IRS. Granted the IRS Statistics of Income division must be where fun goes to die, as my CPA friend Bill Zumwalt (who forwarded me the report) says. But if you want to get rich, there's interesting data buried in all the charts and tables.
(The latest report is for 2009, which to you and me was a long time ago but to the government is really, really up to date.) In 2009 it took $77.4 million in adjusted gross income to make the top 400. Obvious conclusions: Business Plans Are a Waste of Time. Here's What to Do Instead. If you're taking time to carefully perfect a business plan to help ensure your company's model is sound and that it will be a success--stop. That's the word from William Hsu, c0-founder and managing partner at start-up accelerator MuckerLab.
Hsu, who's been both a successful entrepreneur and an executive at AT&T and eBay, says that starting a company is "a career for really irrational people. In all probability, whatever the idea is will fail. Building a reality distortion field is how entrepreneurs convince themselves and their employees that this is a good idea. " With that in mind, he advises: 1. A great team trumps a great idea every time, Hsu says. In either case, having great team members can fill in any areas where the entrepreneur lacks strength, he says. 2. "Whatever hypothesis you have about the market, it's probably wrong by definition," he says. Then, he says, pivot and reconfigure on the basis of that market response. 3. Does that mean you should never look ahead? 10 Ways You Should Never Describe Yourself. Picture this: You meet someone new.
"What do you do? " he asks. "I'm an architect," you say. "Oh, really? " he answers. "Maybe," you reply. "Oh wow," he says. And you're off. You sound awesome. Now picture this: You meet someone new. "I'm a passionate, innovative, dynamic provider of architectural services who uses a collaborative approach to create and deliver outstanding customer experiences. " And he's off, never to be seen again... because you sound like a pompous ass. Do you--whether on your website, or more likely on social media accounts--describe yourself differently than you do in person? Do you use hacky clichés and overblown superlatives and breathless adjectives?
Do you write things about yourself you would never have the nerve to actually say? If so, it's time for a change. Here are some words that are great when used by other people to describe you, but you should never use to describe yourself: "Motivated. " "Authority. " If you have to say you're an authority, you aren't. "Innovative. " Why Face-To-Face Meetings Are Overrated. You know the feeling. Everyone’s sitting around a table, ideas are building on ideas, and intellectual sparks are lighting up the room. It’s tempting to think that this kind of magic only happens when people can see and touch each other. Let’s assume for a second that that’s true: Breakthrough ideas only happen when people are interacting face-to-face. Still, the question remains: How many breakthrough ideas can a company actually digest? Far fewer than you imagine. Most work is not coming up with The Next Big Thing. Rather, it’s improving the thing you already thought of six months--or six years--ago.
Given that, you’re only going to frustrate yourself and everyone else if you summon the brain trust too frequently for those "a-ha! " This is why at 37signals we don’t meet in person all that often. But what about those spur-of-the-moment rays of brilliance? By rationing in-person meetings, their stature is elevated to that of a rare treat. How to Be Happier at Work: 10 Tips. Happiness--in your business life and your personal life--is often a matter of subtraction, not addition. Consider, for example, what happens when you stop doing the following 10 things: 1.
Blaming. People make mistakes. So you blame them for your problems. But you're also to blame. Taking responsibility when things go wrong instead of blaming others isn't masochistic, it's empowering--because then you focus on doing things better or smarter next time. And when you get better or smarter, you also get happier. 2. No one likes you for your clothes, your car, your possessions, your title, or your accomplishments.
Sure, superficially they might seem to, but superficial is also insubstantial, and a relationship that is not based on substance is not a real relationship. Genuine relationships make you happier, and you'll only form genuine relationships when you stop trying to impress and start trying to just be yourself. 3. 4. Interrupting isn't just rude. Want people to like you? 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 6 Habits of Remarkably Likable People. When you meet someone, after, "What do you do? " you're out of things to say. You suck at small talk, and those first five minutes are tough because you're a little shy and a little insecure. But you want to make a good impression. You want people to genuinely like you. Here's how remarkably likeable people do it: They lose the power pose.
I know: Your parents taught you to stand tall, square your shoulders, stride purposefully forward, drop your voice a couple of registers, and shake hands with a firm grip. It's great to display nonverbal self-confidence, but go too far and it seems like you're trying to establish your importance. No matter how big a deal you are you pale in comparison to say, oh, Nelson Mandela. Clinton takes a step forward (avoiding the "you must come to me" power move); Mandela steps forward with a smile and bends slightly forward as if, ever so slightly, to bow (a clear sign of deference and respect in nearly every culture); Clinton does the same. You meet someone.