The news keeps hitting us with more results on studies about links between work and health, both physical and mental.  One of my posts last month, titled “Vacations 2008:  Are We Making Strides in Managing Time and Stress?” referenced a study published in Psychosomatic Medicine and another conducted at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin.  They related to [...]

[Read more →]

Many companies periodically conduct an inventory which allows them to maintain an accurate count of materials, detail a valuation of assets, and a provide a catalog for replacement needs in the event of natural disaster. Although inventories take time up front, they are great time management tools in the long term. Just compare [...]

[Read more →]

Executive Function: assessing, prioritizing, assigning mental functions, tracking multiple activities, reflecting
These are all characteristics that a good executive performs daily. They are also the tasks that emanate from your brain’s prefrontal cortex. This region of your brain is the one that sustains the most damage from prolonged periods of stress.
In our fast-paced daily lives, as [...]

[Read more →]

“Where did this week go?”
That common phrase can be interpreted in two different ways:

It was a great week. I had so much fun/got so much done that it flew by.
I don’t feel that I accomplished anything I had planned, and it is already the end of the week.

It is not hard to figure out [...]

[Read more →]

Job Advertisement: “Must be good at multitasking.”
Obviously the company that posted the above ad is not up-to-date on current research which shows that no one is good at multitasking. Now I realize that you are probably disagreeing with me right now, since you multitask throughout the day, but reality is that our brains are not [...]

[Read more →]

My last post discussed how we stretch ourselves to the limit and then can push ourselves further when driving as we try to reach a destination quickly, often in the interest of better time management. At that same time the news came out about the possibility that two Mesa Air pilots both fell asleep [...]

[Read more →]

Recently a headline hit all of the major papers, asking, “Is Night Shift Tied to Cancer?” The International Agency for Research on Cancer is adding overnight-shift work as a probably carcinogen.
This doesn’t mean that working nights will, by itself, cause cancer. What happens is that the overnight work creates a risk when it disrupts the [...]

[Read more →]

We are faced with jobs, errands, and projects that require our immediate attention every day. Tasks from personal chores (picking up the dry cleaning) to professional obligations (finishing the report by 5 p.m.) weigh on our minds regularly. Trying to decide which to do when can be a challenge.To help determine priorities, let’s first consider [...]

[Read more →]

Stress that is good for you? It is possible. Good stress stems from working hard and productively, feeling accomplished at the end of a challenging day.
Jenna Goudreau recently wrote an article in Business Week about stress factors. Good stress relates to concentration and creativity. This kind of stress is what encourages you to finally sit [...]

[Read more →]

There is a movement afloat, sponsored in part by the Take Back Your Time organization, that is calling for legislation to block companies from not allowing separate sick days and vacation leave. These companies instead combine the days and simply give you x number of days per year to take.
The Fair Labor Standards Act was [...]

[Read more →]