Every Friday I aim to share a few of the more interesting things I've been exposed to over the past few days so you can load up your reader of choice and enjoy some top notch writing over a Saturday or Sunday morning coffee. Here's what caught my eye this week:
Frictionless
Aaron Mahnke (co-host of the Home Work podcast and Wet Frog Studios) launched a resource for freelancers earlier this week called Frictionless. Aaron has been doing the freelance thing for a long time and has a lot of experience to share through his guides and blog posts. I highly recommend you give it a look-see if freelancing is your jam.
100 Time, Energy, and Attention Hacks to be More Productive - A Year of Productivity
I have a love-hate relationship with lists like this. On the one hand I think they oversimplify the complex issues at hand when we talk about "productivity." On the other hand they provide so many good ideas for potential self-experiments. This is a pretty huge and exhaustive list so I'll let you judge if any of these might be useful for your life.
Employee Satisfaction Doesn't Matter - Jim Clifton, CEO at Gallup
At first I saw this headline and was like, "What..." and then I read the article and was like, "Duh." Seriously though, this is a good read if you run any kind of organization or oversee other human beings in a work capacity.
Fortune 1000 executives often come up to me and say, “Our company culture is robust -- our employees have an 85% satisfaction rate.” Good for you. You have ruined your workplace. Ask any employee, “What will satisfy you?” and the answer is easy: free lunches, more vacation time, latte machines --- and don’t forget a ping pong table.
Clifton is laying it down hard in this piece. High five to him. High performers want opportunities to grow and be challenged -- not "be satisfied."
Don't Fight Distraction, Make It Irrelevant - Cal Newport
I'm probably the biggest Cal Newport fanboy on the internet and it's because he has such a way with telling it how it is.
Distraction...is not the cause of problems in your work life, it’s a side effect. The real issue comes down to a question more important than whether or not you use Facebook too much: Are you striving to do something useful and do it so well that you cannot be ignored?
I never think about distraction when I'm doing something I really care about and can get fully engaged with -- it's only when I've lost site of why I'm doing something does distraction suddenly become a big deal. Thank you, Cal, for the great reminder.
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Photo by Ella Phillips