How switching off can help you be more creative - and productive - ABC On-Line

If you reading this online at work - in between checking emails, writing a report for your boss or a client and/or monitoring the price of tea in China - you're risking a major drop in productivity. Hopefully the time you're spending away from other tasks will be balanced by learning something new and interesting. But even if it's relevant to your work, switching back and forth between screens can seriously mess with your mind. According to US media and technology writer William Powers "...we're constantly contending with far more tasks than our minds can handle. We find it increasingly hard to concentrate on any one of them for more than a few minutes. It's estimated that unnecessary interruptions and consequent recovery time now eat up an average of 28 per cent of the working day".

Click to read more ...

Not Enough Time? Try Doing Nothing - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

t was a beautiful, sunny day in New York City as I rode my bike into Central Park. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, pumping my legs hard to work up speed, excited to join the flow of other cyclists I expected to see on the six-mile loop road.But when I arrived, my mood plummeted. The road was filled with runners in a race while the cyclists were relegated to a single lane. I slowed down, annoyed, as I made my way onto the bike lane. Soon, though, my mood lifted: the cycling wasn't as slow as I had feared. I picked up my pace and got back into a rhythm, feeling my pedal strokes and paying attention to my breath.

Click to read more ...

Collaboration: Building and Managing Trust - Allcollaboration.com

The issue of trust is at the core of effective collaboration. The most basic definition of collaboration (co-labor) is working jointly with others for shared goals and outcomes. The need for trust thus arises due to the interdependence between parties. A trust relationship inherently has risk for the parties involved. Individual personal behaviors are different that manage this trust and associated risk. Since trust it at the core of collaboration, how does one build trust? What is trust anyway? What are individual behaviors and expectations in a trust relationship? What can be done to rebuild trust when trust is violated? These are some of the question we address in this post. We can recall what President Reagan often said: Trust but verify. That is, I am willing to trust you only to the extent I can verify what you say. Trust is based on evidence, not words. Evidence is the key to minimizing risk in this instance. This is not a trust relationship in fact; it is a relationship of distrust. But, the circumstances of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) created the interdependence for shared goals and outcomes.

Click to read more ...