Oh No! Microbreaks Are Productive, Real Breaks Aren’t

By Tim Berry

What, no coffee break? This feels vaguely like the idea that so-called grazing all day is better than three good meals and nothing else. Clearly, I’m way too old-fashioned. I just discovered that traditional coffee breaks do nothing for productivity. And I do mean traditional. The idea brought me quickly to this old number, from a... Read More »

I Love These 5 Use-Everywhere Apps

By Tim Berry

What makes good software? For me, the use-everywhere factor is a big deal. I work with a desktop using Windows 7, a Mac at home and a Macbook for travel, mobile phone and a tablet computer. The more my gadgets spread, the more I appreciate the apps that let me get to my workspace wherever... Read More »

Double Your Productivity with Real Focus

By Tim Berry

According to the emails and comments, Tony Schwartz’ post The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time on the Harvard Business Review is getting a lot of attention this morning. He says: Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop... Read More »

What’s In It For You from The Startup America Partnership

By Tim Berry

So how cool is this? The Startup America Partnership is offering a collection of real business tools and resources, mostly web-based, to help high-growth startups. This was announced at the White House a year ago this month. Here’s what I wrote then on this blog: The Obama White House [Feb. 1, 2011] announced its Startup... Read More »

Do We Have Any Idea What Productivity Really Is?

By Tim Berry

Have you thought about productivity lately? And how anybody measures productivity? I think it’s a concept that grew up with the industrial revolution. Productivity was measured as factory work, in units produced per hour. Visualize finished cars flowing out of the assembly line. What’s productivity today and how can we measure it? The modern work... Read More »

1 Great Tip for Better Story Power for Business

By Tim Berry

Here’s a great tip for anybody presenting anything to an audience: Skip the boring preamble. Many times we feel like we have to do a lot of prefacing, but four minutes goes by quickly. If you spend two minutes on background, you’ve lost an opportunity to grab attention. Far better to leave the identifying bits... Read More »

Tell the Truth: Where Are You Most Productive?

By Tim Berry

Interesting post today where Steve King at Small Business Labs asks Is The Traditional Office the Least Productive Place to Work? He cites professional research and uses clear logic. But I still think there’s a catch. He starts with surveys indicating that people who work in coworking locations say they are more productive than working... Read More »

Do You Understand the Power of Instant Rejection?

By Tim Berry

A friend referred me to Vinod Khosla’s Five-Second Rule at Forbes.com. It’s about the slide decks we use for presenting, and its wisdom is a lot like what you get in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink or thousands of blog posts about the importance of headlines. Here’s the Vinod’s test for slide decks: he puts a slide... Read More »