It’s hard to force yourself to sit down and write down your goals. Doing this means you actually have to THINK about them and face the hard facts about your current efforts (or lack thereof) to reach them. It also means that you have to carve-out the time to do this in a schedule that seems way too busy for this type of exercise. But the only thing harder than writing down your goals is trying to achieve them without writing them down.

You need a plan to build a house. To build a life, it is even more important to have a plan or goal.
-Zig Ziglar

The following post at Lifehacker discusses this, centering around the following points:

• Goals mean you’re trying to be better
• Writing things down makes them happen
• Written goals make time for big thinking upfront
• Written goals give you hyper-focus and clarity
• Written goals make it easy to cut the crap
• Written goals prepare you for the best and the worst

Read the details on the above points at Lifehacker.com

The real limiting factor for productivity is your energy levels and ability to pay attention.

Energy levels limit your productivity because when you’re tired, you can have ample time and still not get everything done. Your attention span is even more limited, because even if there are a million things that need to be done, you can only focus on one or two at a time.

You might not be able to insert another 4-5 hours into your schedule without making some sacrifices. But even extremely busy people can add an hour or two into their schedule without eliminating something. The reason it’s hard to “find time” isn’t a lack of time. It’s because you don’t have the attention span left to focus on something else that needs to fit into your day.

Read more on this topic at PickTheBrain: New Habits

You Can Never Get Enough of What You Don’t Need

When people try to keep or manage their commitments in their heads, instead of on paper or some other external medium, they usually have an exaggerated sense of everything they have to do. They’ll often respond reflexively to even simple requests with something like, “But I have so much to do,” or “I just don’t have time right now.”

In emergencies, even people who manage their time in a healthy fashion will lack time. But if lacking time is a daily, systemic pattern, that scarcity probably reflects a deeper issue. Even recognizing an overcommitted schedule, in itself, won’t fix the problem.

Why Lack of Clarity Matters More Than Lack of Time

ChangeThis Newsletter: The World Is Flat… Now It’s Free

Beginning tomorrow, and running through August 4th, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Macmillan Audio will be offering the audio edition of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat for free. Listeners will receive the audiobook in three easy-to-download sections, and soon after that, as an added bonus, will also receive an exclusive prepublication audio excerpt of Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America. The book itself will be released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on September 8th.

The is the end of an article that is worth a full read. Click on the link at the bottom to check out the whole thing.

Talent issues are not small issues. They are big ones because they cut across all aspects of an organization’s life. If you want to attract talent, it isn’t simply the compensation package. It is the culture that they find which will make it possible for them to fulfill their potential.

The keys? Freedom, Openness, Diversity and high levels of interpersonal interaction. The reality is that this is not just about how individual employees are managed. It is about the whole structure of the business is design to function. Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, makes the point that “structure influences behavior.” In other words, it is not enough to say you are free to create. You must create the structures that produce creative behavior. This is quite difficult in organizations where entrepreneurial practices have been weeded out in favor of top-down leadership. If you want talent to thrive in your business, you have to create a bottom-up environment of creative leadership. The truly talented ones, like those Christine Kane compares to Neil Young, will find that not only can they create, but the corporate stucture can actually be a benefit in extending the reach of their talent beyond what they might be possibly do on their own. Of course, it will only happen if you intend for it to do so, and you work to sustain an environment of freedom, openness and diversity.

Leading Questions: Developing a Talent Culture

Oscar Peterson: A model of Engaged Performance.

Have you ever engaged this fully in your work – so much so that the work is transformed by you and you are transformed by the work?

Consciousness, Unconsciousness and Leadership | Slow Leadership

To be conscious, you need to view life, right here and right now, from the 25,000-foot level and ask yourself:
“What am I doing right here, right now?”
“Who am I being, right here, right now? Am I acting in alignment with my core values?”
“Is there harmony between what I think, say, feel and do, and if not, why not? How can I create that harmony for myself?
“What am I thinking about and what do I think about what I’m thinking about?” “Am I ‘going along to get along’ even though I know it’s inappropriate?”

Consciousness is about being decent right where you are. That’s who successful and truly respected leaders and managers are. It’s about showing character and working for the highest good of all concerned, right where you are today. That’s what successful and truly respected leaders and managers do. It’s about showing up, authentically, with integrity, and acting to make the workplace, and the world, a better place for everyone — even if it’s uncomfortable and inconvenient.