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  Never Hire An MBA If you are responsible for hiring people, someone with a master’s of business administration might look like an attractive hire. While, “Never Hire An MBA” might be a bit extreme, I see a lot of people who overvalue an MBA.  Here are some reasons you should be wary or at least careful in hiring them. There [...]

  2 months on
  
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  100 Personal Outsourcing Ideas The idea behind personal outsourcing is to free up more of your time by delegating tasks that don’t require your personal touch to complete. I’ve heard of people outsourcing reading to their kids and even arguing with their spouse, but the whole point of personal outsourcing is to free up  time from unimportant tasks to [...]

  2 months on
  
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  The Role of Lighting Lighting plays a much greater part in our productivity than most people realize. There is quite a bit of research that supports the idea that productivity increases along with the amount of light in your workspace (at least up to a certain point).

  3 months on
  
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  Five Time-savers Five things that will save you time and give you more time to spend on things that are important to you.

  3 months on
  
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  Paperless Office Stories Did you know that a single two-second distraction can cost you 15 minutes of your day? When your concentration is interrupted, it takes up to 15 minutes to get your focus back. Our ambient sounds help reduce the amount of noise distractions in your workplace. Take advantage of the current SALE.Advertise HereWe recently interviewed [...]

  3 months on
  
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  Übernote Review Did you know that a single two-second distraction can cost you 15 minutes of your day? When your concentration is interrupted, it takes up to 15 minutes to get your focus back. Our ambient sounds help reduce the amount of noise distractions in your workplace. Take advantage of the current SALE.Advertise HereWithin the past [...]

  3 months on
  
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  Borrow from your IRA Usually I write about stuff that I recommend doing. In this post I want to look at something that is possible, but not recommended under most circumstances. With hard economic times, there are a lot of people trying to find ways to borrow from their retirement funds. Many 401k accounts allow this, but what if your money is in an IRA? Can you borrow from your IRA? Technically, no. But there is a short term loophole that you can use if you have no other option. In this post we are going to explore the loophole.

  3 months on
  
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  Continual Self-Development One of the biggest reasons people don't reach their full potential is because they don't really understand continual improvement. Skills and capabilities aren't things that you achieve and then coast on for the rest of your life. You can't exercise for three months and then decide you are set for the rest of the year. Pretty much everything you want to improve will require at least a small amount of effort on a regular, ongoing basis.

  3 months on
  
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  Springpad Review Bookmarks, sticky notes, grocery lists, tasks . . . I feel like I just cluttered up that sentence. (Or sentence fragment, if you want to be technical). The web has become such a powerful tool that often its abilities outrun our ability to organize the massive amounts of information that we collect from it. If you're like me, you use your browser's system to create folders under "Bookmarks." However, this really isn't the most efficient way to categorize information that you want to reference with any kind of dexterity.

  3 months on
  
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  You Are Self Employed I was recently talking with a friend who said he'd be scared to try to own his own business because it seemed so insecure. I asked, "How is that any different than what you do working for someone else?" After a moments pause he admitted that it really wasn't. When it comes down to it, you work for yourself regardless of who is the owner of the company that cuts your check. It is your responsibility to market yourself, develop your skills, identify trends and position yourself to profit. Abdicating these responsibilities doesn't somehow put you into an "employee" category where you have more job security.

  3 months on
  
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  Circles, Amex, Passwords and Public Relations I got an interesting call last week. The vice president in charge of public relations from Circles gave me a call. Circles is the company that provides concierge services for American Express. A number of their current and former employees have commented here at Productivity501 and one revealed what Circles considered to be proprietary confidential password from their client American Express. The VP of PR asked that I remove the password. Me: I vaguely remember a comment that had some type of access code in it, but it just looked like a telephone number. Is that what you are talking about. Circles Public Relations: It has the same number of digits as a telephone number, but it is a password that shouldn't be public.

  3 months on