Our working lives are first and almost exclusively about the money. Too often the dollar trumps the dream in our organizational culture. We also struggle to prioritize time over money in our mind. We have biases that equate "busyness" with status and prestige. We also have guilt complexes about buying time but feel less guilty about spending our money on stuff.

So here are some mind-shifting ideas that can lead to rational habits, which can significantly upgrade your life.

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Frank Partnoy, in his excellent book, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay, makes the compelling case that procrastination is not only our middle name, it is also an essential survival tactic in modern business life. We all have so many tasks demanding our attention and only 16 of 24 waking hours (see our February newsletter "Six Secrets of The REM Realm"), so that kicking those cans down the road is inevitable. The problems come when we procrastinate badly. Yes, it comes in two...

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Sleep deprivation is a modern self-inflicted contagion, where the demands of our business and social lives take over the 16 waking hours of our days. And then with our willing connivance, they encroach on the eight hours recommended by doctors and psychologists everywhere for sleep.

Good leadership is a variable from day to day and even within the day. Sometimes we are the leaders we want to be; sometimes we are not so good. The soundness and length of our sleep patterns are...

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1. Articulate your unique proposition. For service-based businesses, there is much less emphasis on price than for product-based companies. What makes your agency, your knowhow, your financial service, or your whatever stand out from the crowded competitive landscape? What exactly (other than being cheaper) can bring clients to your door rather than the doors of all those other providers? Small service-based enterprises cannot survive in the long term without clear,...

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Tips to Improve Perception and Visibility

Add the skills of perception and visibility to those of influence so as to take your career and your business to the next level. Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level by Joel A. Garfinkle is all about ramping up your performance in all the minutiae that make up your business reputation and visibility. THE message is that you can mold your image to be how you want it to be. You can't change how other people...

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