by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “Over-communicating is the glue that holds a high-performing team together and keeps them focused in the same direction. And, it circles back to clarity. Without good, consistent communication, you don’t have clarity.” ―  Lee Ellis, leadership consultant, author, presenter, retired colonel, USAF. As managers, it’s drilled into us that we ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “Artificial intelligence would be the ultimate version of Google. The ultimate search engine that would understand everything on the web. It would understand exactly what you wanted, and it would give you the right thing. We’re nowhere near doing that now. However, we can get incrementally closer to that ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “The best laid schemes of mice and men/often go astray.” ― Scottish poet Robert Burns Sometimes, unexpected events occur that tear apart a carefully planned life. Hopefully this hasn’t happened to you, but if it ever does, your productivity is likely to come crashing down… and really, no one could blame you. But some people might anyway. You may even lose a job, especially in this gig economy where speed reigns supreme. This recently happened to a colleague of mine, who had been his mother’s primary caregiver for several years. In March 2023, they experienc ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “Don’t count the days; make the days count.” ― Muhammed Ali, American boxer. We’d all like to work less, wouldn’t we? It would be nice to take our retirement in installments, like John D. McDonald’s sleuth Travis Magee, but that’s not an option for most of us. One thing many of us try to do is arrange to work fewer days. This usually involves cramming the same 40 hours into fewer days, such as working four ten-hour days while taking Fridays off. But with “flex-time,” as it’s generally called, you still end up working 40-hour weeks, minimum. But how abo ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “…A new generation is on the rise, and the first step to communicating with them is understanding they aren’t just another Millennial.” ― Pamela La Gioia, American business author. The post-Millennial generation of workers, born from about 1995 -2010, has now entered the American workplace in earnest. Some 74 million strong, this diverse cohort comprises about one-quarter of our population, and almost 40% of the workforce. They’re more plugged into the digital world than any generation before them and have never known any other lifestyle. Although Gene ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE  “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”—Peter Drucker. Making predictions about the future of productivity can be dangerous business. Remember all those people who predicted that the Internet would be a flash in the pan? Yeah, me neither. What I do remember is how wrong they were. That said, I’m going to make a few predictions about what might happen in 2023 in the productivity field, based on what we’re all hearing lately. Inflation will continue to eat at your productivity. Inflation has many causes, so we’re not looking to blame it on any ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE  “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”—Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist, in War and Peace. Late in June 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the results of the previous year’s American Time Use Study (ATUS), as it has annually since 2003. I’ve reported on it each year for more than a decade. The ATUS data for 2020, released in 2021, reflected significant effects from the COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the nation since March 2020. Fortunately, during 2021, the crisis loosened its stranglehold on the economy, allowing it to bo ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE Few things have changed the modern workplace more than the COVID-19 pandemic. Large-scale remote work, which many corporations tried and discarded as unmanageable not so long ago, suddenly became required in most businesses. Nascent and underutilized technologies experienced rapid development and widespread implementation. While the pandemic paralyzed some industries for a while, the white-collar world not only adapted quickly, but it also thrived. According to most studies, individual productivity increased slightly after employees went home to work. Familiar s ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE In a rapidly changing environment, it’s no surprise that new “buzzwords” occasionally pop up on your bingo card. One of recent example is upskilling. At first glance, the definition seems obvious, but it means more than you might think—especially after our shared ordeal with the COVID-19 pandemic. These days, we all need to take the time to upskill and refresh our work habits, which the World Economic Forum predicts will raise the global GDP by up to $6.5 trillion by 2030. Upskilling involves taking your work to the next level, to better fit your job’s current a ..read more

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE I’ve been a remote work-at-home professional for 30 years. I’ve never had a traditional brick and mortar office, and I’m the most productive person I know. (That sentence is a bit tongue in cheek.) I was one of the original pioneers of GoToWebinar and was able to use webinars to keep my business going during the 2008-2010 depression. I started using livestreaming in 2017, ahead of it’s time, before people even understood what it was and the difference from a webinar. I’ve hired contractors from all over the world with no geographic constraints to a physical loca ..read more