Productivity lessons learned last year can be used to a greater effect this year, including adapting an indifference to things you cannot change, writes Jory MacKay of the RescueTime blog. Deprioritize tasks that don't yield much return or are outdated and ask your boss for feedback on what does have a high priority, he suggests.
Complaints about "we oughta" do something are easy to indulge but don't lead to action, responsibility or accountability, writes Steve McKee. "So here's an idea: The next time you're in a meeting and one of your people says, 'we oughta,' look them in the eye and say, 'you're gonna,'" he writes.
There are five crucial steps to advancing your career through networking with peers, writes pro-audio industry executive Mike Dias. It begins with saying yes to opportunities that come your way, even if they are outside your expertise or comfort level, and ends with follow-up.
While centralized organizations can suffer from poor or absent leadership, data from the Great Recession of 2009 suggest spreading decision-making power across various levels of the org chart can help an organization outperform its rivals. Many of the lessons learned from this analysis can be applied to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest ADP National Employment Report shows 123,000 jobs were lost in December, marking the jobs metric's first decline since April 2020. The leisure and hospitality sector saw the highest decline, with 58,000 jobs lost, likely because of renewed lockdown rules in many states. Meanwhile, the education and health industries saw an increase of 8,000 jobs during the period.
If it's universally accepted that 2020 felt like a million years, Earth didn't get the memo. The past year included 28 of the fastest days on record since 1960. Typically, deviations from Coordinated Universal Time greater than 0.4 seconds prompt timekeepers to make an adjustment, or a "leap second," to the year. But the acceleration in Earth's spin now has scientists considering a negative leap second, which could alter the future of the field of physics.
