For most of my adult life, I have believed in “the law of attraction” as a voluntary behavioral modification technique. The law of attraction holds that what we think about determines what we attract into our lives. It may be encapsulated in the phrase, “thinking makes it so.” Or, a common catch phrase is “as you believe, so you will receive.”

A few years ago, the “law of attraction” caught fire when the movie, The Secret, came out and was featured on the Oprah Winfrey and Larry King’s shows.  Both talk show hosts asked those who had appeared in the movie variations of these questions: “Can you really think your way to financial riches and success? What about people who have serious health issues? Can they really think them away? Are they to blame for their illnesses just because they aren’t positive enough?”

Read the rest of this entry

Are you among the zillions of people who seek out tips on getting organized to reduce your stress at work? I certainly am. One stressor in particular is self-inflicted: procrastination. We/I procrastinate and procrastinate and then kick ourselves/myself for unwarranted delays.

So if I know that, why am I still doing it? In my defense, I will say that I have infinitely improved in this area over where I used to be. I keep collecting new tools and tidbits and slowly over time I have become more productive. But old habits sometimes still sneak in — unbidden and unwelcome.

So what next? I just found another useful rule of thumb to help out. First some background.

Read the rest of this entry

I am on a constant search for time management tips. I may try out a new technique and it works for a while, but eventually, the idea grows stale and I let it slide away. So when I had dinner with a friend Wednesday evening, I was ripe for more ideas to try.

My friend, Sherra Aguirre, is head of Aztec Services, Inc., an industry leader in facility services.

The company is expanding into property management and she’s committed to maintaining their high quality, environmentally responsible level of services. In a word, she’s busy. I wanted to know how she juggled her workload since I know worklife balance is also important to her.

Read the rest of this entry

Preface: It’s difficult to increase employee motivation when we don’t know how to motivate ourselves to achieve our own goals. A steady theme in this blog is about motivating ourselves to do those things that we want to do, but are finding it difficult to actually get done. (See, for example, How to achieve your goals despite yourself.) The article below by Marshall Goldsmith attracted my attention because he has an interesting take on how we can motivate ourselves — by harnessing our “mojo” or positive spirit. Learning to do this will decrease our stress at work and increase our potential for joy, or at least satisfaction.

Read the rest of this entry