Articles by Jeff Davidson

Years ago, my wife and I used to take one overnight trip every month. We exhausted many of the trips that were within a two-hour radius of our home in Falls Church, Virginia, so we started embarking on three to four-hour trips. One such trip brought us to Virginia Beach, where we stayed at some beachfront hotel.  While perusing tourist literature, we came upon a restaurant called Captain...Full Article »

Leslie Rhatican sat in the chair in my office for a job interview. I was the project director for a half-million dollar study commissioned by the U.S. Small Business Administration. I supervised a staff of seven. We were in need of someone with strong financial analysis skills, preferably an M.B.A. Leslie was sharp as a whip. As I began speaking to her, I couldn’t believe that she was...Full Article »

Sometimes, the smallest item out of place, or the tiniest issue left unchecked, can result in a chain reaction that hampers your ability to proceed with the task at hand. One afternoon, the small knob on my dashboard that controls the direction of air flow in my car fell off while I was driving. At the end of my trip, I searched for the item, but it was nowhere to be found. I searched two other...Full Article »

Picture this familiar situation: An exasperated, prominent senior executive in your organization is on the phone. One of your key staff people calls in sick. An email arrives that will take an hour to address. How did things get this way? Years back, I took a course based on the work of Robert Fritz, a musician and filmmaker turned accomplishment guru. In his book, “The Path Of Least...Full Article »

Despite sophisticated spam filters in place, the typical executive still receives 90 to 120 emails per day based on a variety of studies conducted in 2011. Most of those communiques –– 75% or more –– are considered spam or non-essential. Thus, within the course of a 10 hour time frame, from 8 a.m. in 6 p.m., professionals encounter seven to eight messages per hour that...Full Article »

 “When you're online, you're always distracted,” observes Dr. John Medina, an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington.  Although initially we might want to refute the meaning of his observation, I conclude that it's entirely correct. Each time we are online, we are subject to whatever communication arrives from whoever in the world...Full Article »

You are a competent professional, you consistently get a lot done, and you are adept at composing and executing the items on your to-do list. Yet, there is a simple technique that can help you be even more effective that you might not have ever considered. This technique involves alternating both large and small tasks on your to-do list for the natural energy that engenders. The more productive...Full Article »

With office and workplace interruptions on the rise, career professionals everywhere are experiencing monumental struggles to stay focused. By some studies, today’s typical worker is interrupted every 11 minutes and then takes another 25 minutes to return to the original task because of all the other distractions along the way. The more often you can keep interruptions at bay, stay focused...Full Article »

The ever-increasing array of technology available to workers today accounts for the brunt of distractions we face. Technology, however, has always been with us in one form or another.  Self-management  capability is the deciding factor as to whether or not technology is intrusive.  Smart phones and other mobile devices that connect us to all corners of the globe represent an...Full Article »

In computer science, an interruption is a signal to a computing device that halts the execution of a program in progress so that some other action can proceed. In electrical engineering, an interruption comes in the form of a circuit which conveys a signal that stops the execution of a running program. In everyday life, an interruption is a break in the action and is derived from the Latin words...Full Article »

Over the last ten years, increasingly you have found yourself being interrupted in the course of a work day with greater frequency. How do I know this to be true? We’ve all experienced it. Interruptions are now the chief impediment for HR professionals when it comes to getting things done. Worse still, interruptions are on the rise!  A survey by Basex, a U.S. technology research firm,...Full Article »