Services

Following are my most commonly requested consulting services. In addition, I offer customized consulting tailored to your needs, or the needs of your office or group.

One-on-one desk-side consulting

Because getting started with a new system can be daunting, I offer one-on-one desk-side consulting, the fastest and most effective way for rapid learners to get to a new level of relaxed control. We work one-on-one at your desk, collecting, processing, and organizing all of your "stuff" into a new system that we build from scratch, based on your needs. The process takes between 1/2 day to two full days, depending on your situation. Note that clients often ask me to take them through the process at both work and home.

At the end you will have:

  • Collected and processed all of your "stuff" - every possible source of work for you, including papers, emails, voice mails, thoughts, ideas, post-its, etc,
  • Created a 100% complete inventory of all your commitments, projects, "someday/maybes," and delegated items,
  • Learned a comprehensive decision-making process for dealing with every possible item that comes into your life, giving it enough thought (but no more than necessary), then letting it go until the appropriate time,
  • Created a reminder system that works for you, letting you make the best moment-by-moment choices of how to spend your precious time,
  • Organized your loose papers into a simple but air-tight filing system,
  • Done a complete "mind dump," capturing every idea, thought, and concern into your system, and
  • Got control of your email, getting your INBOX empty.

Extended Individual Coaching

Once you've learned the essentials of thriving in the face of too much to do, clients often have me back for for extended personal support. Via in-person or phone we work together to significantly improve your self-management habits and deepen your practice, all in the context of fast-moving challenges and large projects. Typical durations are three or more months.

Telecoaching

If you'd prefer to work by phone, we will set up a program that fits your needs. Two popular ones are my six week Jump Start to custom build your personal self-management system, and my Daily Planning Accountability series to form a solid daily action habit.

Team Consulting

Like the one-on-one consulting, but for workgroups, I meet with teams to get them up-and-running as a unit. We combine group learning and activities with individual desk-side consulting to provide a focused opportunity for achieving new levels of relaxed control.

Productivity Workshops

For larger groups I offer workshops ranging from one hour to an entire day. These are economical and interactive, and allow participants to learn and apply the concepts using plenty of hands-on exercises. I combine lively short lectures with activities at the individual, small group, and large group levels. Some common formats:

  • My one hour seminar introduces the main ideas and provides some hands-on experiences including a "brain dump" to capture everything that's on your mind, and processing it into action. This is a great introduction to the most important concepts in staying productive under modern demands and heavy workloads.
  • My half day workshop covers in detail all aspects of managing the "incoming" in your life, including capturing projects, pulling out actions, ensuring air-tight delegation and follow-through, and implementing using your favorite tools and email. You leave with a complete list of all your commitments, knowing how to handle anything coming at you.
  • My full day workshop extends the half day seminar to teach important "non-actionable" concepts and tools including crisp filing, making progress on reading, tracking not doing projects, and plenty of case studies like travel. This is the fastest and most comprehensive way to learn an air-tight personal system, short of my two-day intensive at your desk.

Presentations and Guest Speaking

I'm often brought in for "Lunch & Learn" presentations as a fun way to learn some useful productivity ideas. I keep the topics light, but stimulating and useful. Some recent ones include:

  • Add, subtract, multiply, divide: Productivity lessons from basic math (making better choices, improving priorities, controlling information overload, and leveraging automation),
  • The productivity input/output sweet spot (the fundamentals on reversing falling behind, and what "balance" really means),
  • Three tools you're using wrong: email, feed reader, legal pad (getting control of them, rather than vice versa),
  • Three productivity mistakes you've already made today (out-dated time management habits and ideas that need replacing),
  • The lifecycle of a thought, or, why 2 is the new 7 (capturing the ideas that keep you innovating and staying competitive).

For information about presentations and guest speaking please email me or call.

Email Newsletter




NEWS

In the news: Men's Health Magazine's November issue has my advice about their reader's question When I'm Driving To The Office, Is It Better To Jumpstart My Brain With Talk Radio, Or Chill Out With Music?.

New services: I've added some popular new services including telecoaching, new workshops, and some fun new presentations. To bring me in to your organization, email me or call.

In the news: I had the pleasure of being a guest on the men@pause podcast series on entrepreneurial success. I'm happy to be included with such notables as Jason Fried of 37signals, and Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art. Listen to the interview here.

Client news: A big thanks to the smarties at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for a great series of workshops. It's always fun to be back, and as a bonus I got to see a Shuttle launch!

Blog news: I've been honored as a Top GTD News blog, a top Career Effectiveness Pick (for The Real Reasons For The Modern Productivity Movement), Top 20 Productivity Articles to Organize Your Life (for 10 GTD "holes"), one of The Web's Best on Effectiveness, and one of Zen Habits'Top 20 Productivity Lists to Rock Your Tasks. Thanks, all!

Client news: I had the great pleasure of working with David McLaughlin, professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at University of Massachusetts Amherst. David directs CASA, the center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere, a prestigious National Science Foundation Engineering Center.

Blog news: The Uber productivity site 43 Folders has featured my personal productivity article on Best practices for administrative assistants.

Blog news: My article A dozen small ways to get productivity improvements to stick in an organization was picked up by the major productivity site lifehack.org.

Client news: Dr. Hauschka Skin Care had a very interesting FastCompany write-up: Can't Buy Me Love.

Blog updates: Mike Pierre over at mega productivity site Lifehack was kind enough to call me the "Brainiac Dad" in his Productivity Family Tree. I'm in great company including Laura Stack (author of Leave the Office Earlier) and Mark Sanborn (author of The Fred Factor).

Client news: I was pleased to be included as an option for recipients of UMass Amherst's ambitious Mellon Mutual Mentoring Initiative (more here).

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