The Business Pod's Blog

Do you take your laptop on holiday?  Do you sometimes “hate” your mobile phone?   Harris Interactive recently reported that one-third of business people take their laptops on holiday.  During a Sunday meal at a restaurant recently, I observed a man sitting with his family talking on his mobile phone -- obviously about business. He was not happy – neither was his family!   To paraphrase Charles Dickens, “It is the best of times.  It is the worst of times.”  Certainly that applies when it comes to “connectivity.” Stories of 9-11 victims being able to communicate with family members in the last minutes of their lives warmed my heart, while the story my friend told of her mother answering her mobile phone in the delivery room during the birth of her grandchild chilled my soul.   How grateful I was for my mobile phone when I came across someone with one, and I could immediately help them get help. How convenient it is on holiday to use the Internet to explore the options for entertai

Do you know that you get 80% of your results from just 20% of your time and effort and consequently 80% of your time is virtually wasted on non productive activities?. Once you realise this it is easy to take advantage and either reduce the hours you work or significantly improve your productivity. The 80-20 rule was first discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto a hundred years ago.  Using this knowledge is incredibly powerful in combating the "not enough hours in the day" mentality of today's society. The 80-20 rule means that in any area of our lives, literally 80 percent of our fruits are derived from only 20 percent of doing "what matters". In other words, there is only a very small portion of all that we do each day, regardless of the situation, that brings us the "higher return".  How can you benefit from being aware of this principle? Implementing a strategy based on the 80-20 rule can result in greater wealth and greater leisure