How to Revamp Your Professional Image

Recently we covered how to dress with confidence at work. It’s not a frivolous topic; your confidence is directly tied to your performance. It’s part of what people notice first about you. Of course, you have to have great skills and good ideas, but your image is also a critical part of how you’re perceived … Continue reading →

Admin is Sticky

In a previous post, I wrote about how life admin causes conflict between partners, spouses, and roommates.  Nobody likes having to take on the boring, low (if any) satisfaction tasks like scheduling appointments, calling contractors, or finding a new cleaning service. Elizabeth Emens is the author of Life Admin: How I Learned to Do Less, … Continue reading →

Your Stress Won’t Kill You – But your Attitude about it Might

Think about the last few weeks of your life. Have you been feeling stressed? Do you have a big event coming up that’s got you losing sleep or feeling panicked? We all feel stressed from time to time, but stress itself is not the enemy. Our beliefs about stress are the enemy.

Life Admin

In a previous post, I write about the insidious creep of administrative work it takes to run a modern household. From scheduling appointments to paying bills, calling about repairs, and following up with kids’ activities, the never-ending to-do list that is life admin takes up enormous amounts of time, resources, and brainpower. Elizabeth Emens is … Continue reading →

Whose Job is it, Anyway?

So how do families decide who does the admin? Elizabeth Emens says it happens in several ways, some of them deliberate and some entirely random. Continue reading →

The Dog Ate My Homework and Other Lame Excuses

I never told a teacher that the dog ate my homework in grade school. It would not have worked for me because a.) I usually had my homework done and b.) we did not have a dog. But somewhere along the line, it must have been used by some enterprising student who felt safe because … Continue reading →

How Technology Increases Workplace Productivity

(Guest Post Courtesy of Innovative Technology Solutions) Having the right tools can make all the difference for a business’s success. Even if you have superior products or services, you may find yourself outpaced by competitors with a technological edge. Technology can help your business function more smoothly, connect with customers more successfully and react to … Continue reading →

Robots Get Fired for Low Performance

There’s new hope for those workers who are preparing to be replaced by robots (or managed by robot overlords.) A January 14 article in the Wall Street Journal reports that a Japanese hotel whose workforce consisted mainly of robots, has pulled the cord (so to speak) on the experiment. Continue reading →

The Modern Administrative Assistant

Administrative Professionals Week fell this year on April 24. The modern admin assistant is tasked with a variety of important tasks, including data management, supervision, budget responsibilities, even hiring and training. Good riddance to the days when as Peggy Olsen, in Season One of  Mad Men, said, “He may act like he wants a secretary, but most of the time they’re looking for something between a mother and a waitress.” Continue reading →

Your Guide to Digital Declutter

Spring is my favorite time to purge and clean, and I’ve been working on my physical spaces since the New Year. It’s easy to see where you could make a difference in your office or closet, because you see the overcrowding and hate struggling to find important items.  But your digital storage could probably benefit from a spring cleaning as well. Continue reading →