Removing distractions to improve focus

How to End the Distraction That Saps Your Productivity

from Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D.,  author of "Meet Your Happy Chemicals"

Personal-productivity guru David Allen, says that an un-distracted mind is the key to productivity.

In 2013 I will:

1) Click unsubscribe

2) Reduce clutter in manageable chunks instead of seeing it as an intimidating mountain. If I faithfully repeat the ten-minute task of clearing the junk off my desk for 45 days, it should become a wired-in habit.

Pricing Strategies: thought leaders & articles

Andreas Hinterhuber Is It Time to Rethink Your Pricing Strategy? MIT Sloan Mgmt. Review

Jim Saunders The Journey to Pricing Excellence Pricing Solutions Newsletters

Tim Smith Piercing the veil of value exchange

Stephan Liozu: Managing Complexity in Value and Pricing Management

The paradox of choice why more is less

Barry Schwartz:

Good Strategy / Bad Strategy

Professor Richard Rumelt Chair: Professor Gordon Barrass Recorded on 20 October 2011
MP3 PodCast here  Bad strategy / Good Strategy:

Strategy doesn't just set goals, it defines the major problems and how you will deal with them.
It's a bad strategy if it's all fluff. Fluff is not a strategy. Identify and analyze the challenges.
A bad strategy is a laundry list of too many items.
A strategy is a coherent mix of policy & action designed to deal with a high stakes challenge. It has an essential kernel with 3 components.
  Diagnosis- what is the nature of the problem
  Guiding Policy- decisions that guide solutions
  Coherent Action- Strategy coordinates the predictable nature of life

Strategy is about insight.

Create proximate objectives. Get to the future by doing something now. Achievable in the near term. (Not blue sky)

Ride the wave.

Links matter. To achieve excellence, a bunch of things need to work. Each piece has to work right.

Expect entropy & inertia. The world is a mess and it's hard to get things to change.

Bad strategy is saying where we are going without saying how we are going to get there.

The primary element of good strategy is to focus energy on a proximate objective.

Don't rely on the 3 secrets of success:
  1) aim high - if you aim low you won't succeed.
  2) Never give up - if you give up, you won't succeed.
  3) Don't think too much becasue you might start to question #s 1 & 2

http://www.strategyland.com/ 

Your Brain at Work Google Talk by David Rock

55 minute video:

Coach David Rock depicts the story of two people over one day at the office, and what's happening in their brains that makes it so hard to focus and be productive. Not only does he explain why things go wrong, but how you can train your brain to improve thinking and performance at work.

The four surprises:
1 The rational is overrated
2. We've got emotions backward
3. Social issues are primary
4. Attention Changes the brain