Unlock Your Potential, Habits for Business Success and More Expert Tips

CREATIVITY Write Down Your Ideas

Don’t think you have great ideas? Thiago Forte, author of Building A Second Brain, recommends you do a 30-day test. “For 30 days, once or twice a day, when you have an insight or idea, write it down in a digital notes app. At the end of 30 days, open it up and look at this treasure trove of knowledge and try and tell me that that some of the total collected information is not going to be valuable for all your future projects and goals,” he said on the Dan Pink podcast.

CUSTOMER RELATIONS Change the Scale

If you’ve sought feedback from customers and they’ve only ever told you you’re fantastic, you may want to try what Gentle Giant Moving Co. does. Ask customers to rate your store on a 14-point scale. “They could circle 12, meaning you’re excellent but you could be better. You have to do everything you can to find out,” the company’s CEO, Larry O’Toole told Inc. magazine.

MANAGEMENT Exploration Vs Exploitation

At a restaurant do you order what you know is great, or do you try something new? At work, do you stick to the tried and tested or try new things? According to technology writer Kevin Kelly, the optimal balance for exploring new things versus exploiting them once found is: 1:3. Spend one-third of your time on exploring and two thirds on deepening. “It is harder to devote time to exploring as you age because it seems unproductive, but aim for 1:3,” he says.

PRODUCTIVITY Put It in a Time Box

If you’re procrastinating on a task, forget about completing it: Just put it in a time box of say 45 minutes instead, writes Luciano Passuello on his Litemind blog (litemind.com). “You overcome your resistance towards the task and chances are that when the time is up, you’ll have built enough momentum to continue working on it much longer.” Passuello adds a neat trick: His computer emits the sound of a raucous round of applause when he reaches the allotted time.

MARKETING All Eyes Left

Text to the left, imagery and iconography the right. That’s how your ads — whether on TV, billboards, webpages — should be set up to maximize the converse way your brain visualizes and processes elements (that is, elements on the right are picked up by the left frontal lobe and vice versa). “The right frontal lobe is particularly good at interpreting imagery and iconography,” Pradeep said. “And the left frontal is better for semantic and quantitative info,” so your ads should be designed in accordance said the head of the neuromarketing research company.

MANAGEMENTExtend Credit

What’s the best way to utterly destroy an employee’s effectiveness at work? Stop them from getting things done. And what kind of idiotic boss would do that? Oh, the kind that takes credit for their work, needlessly interferes or disrupts their progress on a job, sets conflicting goals, or restricts their autonomy. All told, it’s about one in three bosses, say Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer authors of The Progress Principle, who spent 15 years studying the diaries of workers and their bosses. “People want to make a valuable contribution and feel great when they make progress toward doing so,” they say.

HIRING Team Reading

You can’t spend too much time or effort on “hiring smart” (the alternative is to manage tough, which is much more time consuming). But here’s a strategy to speed up the process: Read résumés in teams if possible. Teams of three to five people who work well together are more accurate and insightful about potential employees than individuals are, says Pierre Mornell, author of 45 Effective Ways of Hiring Smart!

PRODUCTIVITY Monotasking Is In

Most people now appreciate that multitasking is a generally poor way to go about your workday — switching between tasks is cognitively demanding and impacts the speed and precision with which we do things. Studies have also found that multitasking can raise your blood pressure, trigger anxiety, and hurt mood.

At the same time, the modern work environment makes multitasking almost the default. What to do? Like so many things, it starts with awareness. According to Dr. Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California-Irvine and author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happines and Productivity, start by observing yourself throughout the day, noticing when and how you task-switch without realizing it. From there, the advice is simple yet challenging: You’ll need to practice monotasking, or doing one thing at a time, to gradually retrain your focus and build your tolerance. If you’re struggling, start small. Can you monotask for five minutes? How about 10?