Feed the Passion – As I was talking with a friend about his hobby, it was clear that his hobby was his passion. He loved spending time doing it, loved getting better at it, was proud of his efforts, but in the end, he was really doing it for himself and not some kind of external validation. So I got to thinking about the people that work with us or for us. They have things in their jobs that they like doing. They also have things that they don’t like doing so much. And if you are lucky, there might some things in there that they are passionate about. The real question is do you know what these are? Do you know what part of their jobs your people really love to do? (If I asked you would you know? And why not??) If you pile on more of what a person hates to do, can you expect them to be really productive at it? What if, on the other hand, you pushed more work that a person was passionate about his way? More fun, more productivity, more output. So here’s the challenge. Find out what people are passionate about. Give them more of that to do. And when you are rewarded with happy, productive, excited employees, then maybe your boss will do the same for you!!

Manage the Details – I am working with a short crew this week so I have pick up the slack. Most of the extra work that I’m doing isn’t that hard, but the details seem to take longer than the important stuff. So keep this in mind. If you want an absolutely first class job, the details might be the most time consuming part of the project. But if you need something in a hurry, you might ignore the details and live with something that’s in a rough form. What’s key is to clearly understand the difference. Managing the details might be the best way to manage your (and your peoples’) time.