After so many companies set up furloughs or cut hours, many employees are questioning time expectations. 

If your schedule was cut back to four days a week and you were working 60+ hours a week prior to that point, what is your week like now?
If your colleague agreed to a two-week furlough, did your work hours increase?

In current [...]

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The unemployment rate is a sobering message in the headlines each day, leading many to consider starting their own businesses.   Whether or not you have your own business, it is good to review the positives and negatives because they have a message for all workers.
PLUS: 
Business owners are often happier.  They usually enjoy their field and [...]

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The average traveler spent 36 hours in rush-hour traffic jams in 2007.  That translates to $750 per person in the form of lost time and fuel.  (Urban Mobility Report, Texas Transportation Institute, 2007 figures)
It is great when you get more done during the day and are able to leave in time for an evening with [...]

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“There’s no such thing as work-life balance.  There are work-life choices and you make them, and they have consequences,” according to former GE CEO Jack Welch in speaking to the Society for Human Resources Management.
I tend to agree with Mr. Welch.  We seem to be pursuing some phantom concept that has not taken into account [...]

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The second week of November is “Pursuit of Happiness Week.” Pursuing happiness may have been much simpler back when the Founding Fathers were writing about  “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  Although life was tough for many of them, options often limited.
Now we have so many choices we feel constantly stressed, pulled in multiple [...]

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If you were given a tool that would 1) increase productivity, 2) give you a better life balance, 3) help you feel in control, and 4) improve your health, would you be interested?  There is actually one thing you can do that can return multiple results:  Limit multitasking.  Take a look at why this one change would have such [...]

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Many of you dream of the day when you no longer have to “work.”  That actual retirement, however, may be a long way off.  In the current world, it may not come at all, as more and more people find they have to keep going to make ends meet.
When work consumes a major part of [...]

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The news keeps hitting us with more results on studies about links between work and health, both physical and mental.  One of my posts last month, titled “Vacations 2008:  Are We Making Strides in Managing Time and Stress?” referenced a study published in Psychosomatic Medicine and another conducted at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin.  They related to [...]

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Last summer I had the privilege of being interviewed by the NBC Nightly News as their Productivity Expert, dealing with the topic of vacation deprivation in the United States. The question was why we take fewer vacations days on average than other countries.
Have we improved since last year? With the economy in flux [...]

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As we start out in the month of May, it is beneficial to reflect on what May Day means to many countries. On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of workers in the U.S. marched in support of the eight-hour workday. From that date, It actually took 54 years of struggle before we [...]

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