Supposedly, Mark Twain once said something along the lines of, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” And that is our productivity tip of the day. You’re welcome, and thanks for reading! Just kidding … kind of.
Hope You’re Hungry
Twain wasn’t literally suggesting people eat frogs for breakfast (we think). And while this quote, like many, may have been misattributed to the legendary author, a longer version of the supposed quote at least clears up the context a bit: “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” In more practical terms, the “frog” is your worst, most unsavory task of the day. You know, that one thing you’re dreading. This daunting task is probably also your most important, and the one that you’re most likely to procrastinate on. If you have two frog tasks, start with the one you’re least excited to do.
Allotting the first hour or two of your day to your despised frog task will make it easier to get through, seeing as everyone around you is still catching up on emails and starting the coffee machine. Use those quiet hours wisely. By knocking a big task out asap, you’ll get a huge sense of accomplishment even before lunchtime. From there, that sense of accomplishment may very well snowball into motivation that will keep your day moving right along.
Retired U.S. Navy general William McRaven revealed a similar tip for being productive at work and maintaining discipline throughout the day. McRaven makes his bed every morning. By doing this, he gains a sense of accomplishment right off the bat, as well as some pride in sticking to a good habit of self-discipline.
Self-development author and public speaker Brian Tracy digs into this time management and productivity strategy in his best-selling book “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.” For Tracy, the goal is to turn eating the frog into a lifelong habit. Though the frog task may change from day to day, the habit of conquering that annoying task right away is what should stick. Tracy writes on his blog, “Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete.”
You heard the man: Eat your frog. Hope you’re hungry.
Conversations about money can be tricky, especially when it comes to salary negotiations. These convos are arguably some of the most anxiety-inducing parts of life, right along with public speaking and dealing with your cable company. So, what does one say when asking for a raise…?
According to Harvard’s recent study, 14 percent of women and 14 percent of men said they acted less assertively in salary negotiations for “fear of upsetting the relationship with their boss or colleagues.” That said, women who asked obtained a raise 15 percent of the time, while men obtained a pay increase 20 percent of the time.
Don’t lose heart, though. Productive and fruitful salary discussions are not only possible, but can be surprisingly pleasant if you’re prepared and confident…
From negotiation timelines to the best salary resources, [here is] some sage advice on how to make a case for what you deserve…it’s safe to say these tips are worth their weight in gold. Get ready to break out that notepad —because investing in yourself should be a regular practice.
First and foremost, before asking for any raise, make sure you’re meeting and exceeding the expectations with your job. Be humble, work hard, and don’t try to compete with anyone else. There’s enough to go around for all of us to be successful.
Don’t expect success overnight. It takes years of hard work to start to build a long-standing career. Keeping all these things in mind, you can build a case for your manager and/or boss as to why you deserve a raise, knowing the value of your time and hard work.”
A long-standing employee once outlined their current role and responsibilities. They shared their goals, additional responsibilities they had voluntarily taken on outside of their ‘scope of work,’ and asked for feedback around their performance. All this validated the answer to their question: ‘Will you consider a pay-raise, based off my performance?
That got a huge ‘yes’ … I will always make sure any raise is linked back to having key performance indicators and that these are challenging enough for the employee’s personal career growth, but still achievable and beneficial for the business.
Always do your research before asking for raise, whether that’s by having frank conversations with your peers in the industry, or by leveraging resources … to read up on tips for navigating the process. Tapping into these communities will give you an added boost of confidence, and you might even meet a new friend or future business partner.
I love [the topic of salary] because it’s something every employee thinks about, but doesn’t quite know how to approach. In my experience, the best conversations regarding a raise happened after I had done my homework on why I should be making more, as well as understanding what ‘more’ is and knowing the right time to ask.
Simply asking for more money because you think you deserve it is not enough. A few things help prepare for this conversation:
How much less (or more) are you making than your peers doing the same work?
How have you exceeded the expectations given to you? Have you done this consistently?
How much more do you think you deserve and what is the logic behind this number?
Do your research, put together a compelling reason, and you’ll find that not only will you get that raise, but you’ll impress your boss in doing so. Double win!
While asking for a raise always feels like a difficult conversation, I’ve seen a number of employees do it very effectively. One of the most important factors is timing. I’ve found that the strongest employees start talking about a raise far in advance. They lay out their performance highlights and often suggest the milestones they want to hit and a timeline that makes sense.
Establishing those mutual expectations upfront is very helpful. There are no surprises for the employer or the employee and everyone is aligned on what needs to happen, reducing the stress and anxiety that often goes into these types of conversations.
When it comes to salary negotiations, I firmly believe that [everyone] should take the emotion out of the ask. You should never feel bad about asking for something you’ve proven you deserve, so if you have the results to show your impact and output, go for it.
Start by writing down the the reasons you’re asking. It will give you a clear picture on what you’ve delivered for the business and give you the confidence to articulate it. Sometimes seeing it on paper will offer the necessary perspective so that you don’t underestimate your abilities or the value you bring to the table.
The idea that there are three kinds of perfectionism isn’t a new one. The concept was first described by Paul Hewitt from the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital and Gordon Flett from York University in 1991. In the same paper, they also devised the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, which describes exactly how your neuroses manifest to keep you striving for a standard that’s impossible to reach.
Other scales have been created since then, as have remixes of the original Hewitt-Flett scale, but the basic test has remained in circulation for nearly 30 years. You can experience any of the three types in varying degrees, but they all come down to the perceived source of your perfectionism. So, do any of these ring a bell?
Self-Oriented Perfectionism
This is probably the closest to the layperson’s standard definition of “perfectionism.” In short, it’s the perfectionism that you require of yourself. If you struggle with this thought pattern, then you’re likely to hold yourself to a standard far beyond what you can reasonably achieve. You probably pore over every detail of every action you’ve ever taken, eager to see where you made a mistake. You probably shoulder a lot of blame when things go wrong, even things that you have no control over.
While some might question if this type of perfectionism is really so bad, Hewitt and Flett themselves had no doubts: “self-oriented perfectionism has been associated with various indices of maladjustment,” they write. These include anxiety, anorexia nervosa, and subclinical depression. They also note that the discrepancy between the actual self and the ideal self can give one a depressive affect.
Other-Oriented Perfectionism
Self-oriented perfectionism is when you’re your own worst critic. Other-oriented perfectionism is when you’re everybody else’s worst critic too (or maybe you think you’re just fine, and it’s everyone else that needs to shape up). If this describes you, then you have unrealistic standards for other people — family, friends, significant others, and coworkers. Hewitt and Flett point out that a person with this perfectionism type might struggle with trust, blame, and underlying hostility. However, they also point out that a person like this might just be well-suited to leadership, but they should be careful to keep their judgmental tendencies in check at home.
Socially Prescribed Perfectionism
Socially prescribed perfectionism might just be the most insidious type of all. You could think of it as a cursed hybrid of the self- and other-oriented varieties. Basically, it’s driven by the perception (whether true or not) that others are judging you by an unrealistic standard. It leads to the belief that you are constantly letting everybody else down, that you are incapable of meeting what society requires of you, and, like other-oriented perfectionism, can lead to a breakdown in your relationships. Your sense of self-worth is determined by your perception of how others perceive you, and you’re disposed to think that others perceive you very poorly.
Thanks to Hewitt and Flett’s scale, and the fact that researchers have been giving students psychological tests since time immemorial, a new report by Thomas Curren from the University of Bath and Andrew Hill from York St. John University was able to look at the last 30 years of perfectionism in the minds of young people. They looked at examples of more than 41,000 American, British, and Canadian students, each of whom took the test between the years 1989 and 2016.
What they found was while socially prescribed perfectionism increased the most and self-oriented perfectionism the least, all three types showed a clear upward trend in recent years. And that could be bad news for the kinds of ideals that our society engenders…
… If each of us is trying our level best to out-perform everybody else, the idea goes, then together we all will become better. To many, it’s a comforting thought. Everybody who is successful in this system is perceived to be so because of their intrinsic merits, perhaps because they worked harder and perhaps because their ideas are just better.
Unfortunately, say the researchers, it has a corollary downside felt by everybody who doesn’t achieve wild success — this alleged meritocracy has found them to be without merit. The result is that each individual, no matter how great their success, is left “more individualistic, materialistic, and socially antagonistic.”
It’s not a recipe for success. It’s a recipe for a mental health crisis that also calls for everybody to cut out their social support groups..it’s worth considering that .
Editor’s note: Fortunately, and I say this with the utmost sincerity, this does not apply to my current boss…but I have had my share of them! Hopefully, I wasn’t one of them! ~ MWood
COMMENTARY You hear it all the time: “He’s completely clueless.” “What in the world were they thinking?” “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” And when you hear it coming out of your own mouth, that means you’re having an “idiotboss” moment and are probably heading for the margaritas, the LinkedIn jobs page, or both.
It’s rough when your boss is an idiot. Even worse is when the CEO is an idiot. And sometimes the idiocy propagates throughout the entire management team like a contagious superbug.
A friend of mine is jumping ship from a once-great company that’s now run by morons. The company used to have a market cap of $50 billion. Now it’s worth about one tenth of 1 percent of that. When my friend actually pondered if he should quit the Popsicle stand for a better position at an awesome, growing company, I thought, “OMG, the idiocy’s gotten to him too!”
I have those idiotboss moments all the time. No, I don’t really have a boss these days, but now it’s even worse because I’m always hearing and writing about executives and boards of companies that make the same dumb mistakes over and over. And some of them are pretty hard to believe.
Over the past year alone, executives of tech giant HP (HPQ) and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIMM) couldn’t have done a better job of driving their companies off a cliff if they’d cut the brake lines and floored the accelerator pedals themselves.
RIM’s co-CEOsrecently stepped down, replacing themselves with a guy who plans to keep things more or less status quo. Investors, who lost about $70 billion over the past three years or so, weren’t too happy about that. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Yeah, it’s not too bright, either.
Smiley (Yahoo)
Yahoo’s (YHOO) corporate color is purple. Company founders Jerry Yang and David Filo thought that was the color of creativity and innovation. After five years of mega screw-ups and gross mismanagement, I’m beginning to wonder if somebody dropped a batch of magic mushrooms into the purple paint at company headquarters. I don’t think shareholders would be one bit surprised to learn that Smiley here, from Yahoo’s corporate values page, is actually running the show.
Enough with the fun and games; let’s get serious about what you should do when you have those idiotboss moments. Here’s a hint: it’s not necessarily all bad; you have more choices than you think.
Are you sure it’s not you? In the case of my friend’s company, as well as Yahoo, RIM and HP, there is definitely something screwy going on with the leaders of those companies. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes we lash out at our bosses because we’re frustrated with ourselves, jealous that someone else got the promotion, or angry that we’re not doing better than we are. Sometimes we’re looking for a fall guy or someone to demonize because it’s too painful to look in the mirror. Not that I’m a shrink or anything, but it’s often the case, nevertheless.
Cut them some slack. To be fair, most employees aren’t aware of everything that goes on behind closed doors and exactly why decisions they may think are stupid are actually made. And even if they are dumb, bosses are human too, which means they’re allowed to make mistakes. Nevertheless, it’s frustrating when those mistakes give you a massive headache or a shrinking bank account. In that case, you still have three more choices.
Say something to someone. Not that I’m saying you should, but before you drink yourself into oblivion, drive yourself nuts, or throw in the towel and move to a deserted island, you might consider actually saying something to your boss or someone in the chain of command. Who knows? They might actually appreciate the feedback. Maybe you know something they haven’t thought of. Or maybe they’ll label you a troublemaker and fire you on the spot. I’d think long and hard about it, but in any case, it’s an option.
Head for the bar. Or better still, the gym. When you’re stressed out, burned out, or just plain mad at the world for sticking you with a bunch of idiots for managers, it always helps to remind yourself that life is more than your job. So, whatever works for you to push the reset button and get some perspective, do that — you’ll feel better. And keep doing it over and over until you can’t take it anymore. Then you’re down to the last option.
Head for the hills. The reason why you should never let any of this stuff really get to you, ruin your day, or ruin your life, is because you live in a free country. And while it’s a really tough job market, you can always quit and do your own thing or, in time, find another job. Sometimes even committing in your head to get the heck out as soon as you can and beginning the search process is enough to make you feel better. Really.
Those are my five ideas for what to do about an idiotboss. If you’ve got a better idea, I’m sure we’d love to hear it.
Daniel B. Kline (TMFDankline) Apr 11, 2018 at 6:55AM
Over 40% of all Americans do at least some of their work fromhome, according to a 2017 Gallup poll. That’s because more companies have embraced flexible scheduling and are allowing workers more say in where they do their work at least some of the time.
Spending part of the work week at home and working completely fromyour house, however, are very different things. The first offers added flexibility and makes life easier. The second is a lifestyle choice that’s not rightfor everyone.
It takes a certain mentality and set of skills to be a full-time at-home worker. That may not be immediately evident when the opportunity first comes up. It’s easy to focus on the positives of not having a commute, saving money, not having to dress for work, and so many other things.
There are negatives, however, and it’s important to ask yourself these questions before taking a work-from–home position. You may find even with all the positives that it’s not foryou.
Can I handle being alone?
Workingfromhome means that you won’t have the same level of co-worker interactions you have in an office. Some jobs offer at-home workers high levels of interaction with other people during meetings or through workplace messaging tools like Slack.
In many cases, though, at-home workers experience long periods of time without much in the way of social interaction. You might have a meeting and work discussion, but you might miss out on water cooler talk and the type of personal interplay that’s common in an office.
Can I avoid distractions?
The difficult thing about your house is that it’s where all your stuff is. If you have a work-from–home job with flexible hours then that can be a problem.
Are you the type of person who can overlook the laundry or your video game system when there’s work to be done? Can you close the door and shut out other family members if someone else happens to be home?
Can I say no?
You‘d be amazed how many people equate workingfromhome with total freedom. Yes, in theory, many work-from–home situations come with flexible work hours. That’s awesome if you have a doctor’s appointment or need to attend an event at your child’s school. It’s less great when your flexibility means family members assume that you can take them to the doctor, drive them to the airport, or just hang out in the middle of the day.
If you‘re a work fromhome employee you‘ll need to be able to say no and accept that people may not understand. If you don’t, you‘ll end up working nights, weekends, and other non-traditional times to get your work done. That’s fine when it’s your choice, but not so good when an inability to say no puts you in that position.
Can I turn it off?
When your house is your workplace you‘re always at work. That makes it hard for some people to walk away from the job.
Do an honest evaluation and consider whether you are the type of person who can put in your time at the “office” and then walk away at a reasonable time. It’s harder for some people than others and it’s important to know which type of person you are.
Supposedly, Mark Twain once said something along the lines of, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” And that is our productivity tip of the day. You’re welcome, and thanks for reading! Just kidding … kind of.
Leadership Flagship 