Articles for category: Drive

May 19, 2015

Greg Thomas

My Three Categories of Work

I think I was packing for a trip somewhere when I started going through the mental checklist of what tasks on my plate had to be completed before I went anywhere.  These ranged from family to work to personal to house to car to anything really, but in the end, they all came back to three core categories; Have to do, Need to do and Want to do. Have to do This is the work that just has to get done regardless of what’s going on in your life, in the extreme – just lost your arm, must get it back

March 19, 2015

Greg Thomas

Did you really need that extra mail?

How many mails come into your inbox on a daily basis? Now take that number and determine how many of those mails were actually addressed to you vs those you were cc:ed on. Now of the mails that you were cc:ed on, how many of those were actually useful or that you took action on?  (An action cannot be the action of  deleting the email). Probably close to zero right? Before email, two people could have a conversation and know they were important to the outcome of that conversation.  With email – you never know!  You could cc the world on an email thread,

February 3, 2015

Greg Thomas

How not to Prep for an Interview – Part I

I’ve been trying to figure out how to name this post because I knew from the get-go that it was going to be done in two parts where the viewpoint in Part I is from that of the person being interviewed (the interviewee) and Part II is from that of the person conducting the interview (the interviewer).  Both perspectives are in regards to how one should not conduct themselves at interviews. I’ve been involved in a least 100+ interviews, being on both side of the fence (more on the interviewer side) – can’t say 1,000+ and I am actually happy to

January 13, 2015

Greg Thomas

Insulate the Failure

I know this is one of those topics out there that people might go – “oh great another blog about letting people fail and everyone being happy and unicorns and rainbows and let’s hold hands and save the world, etc, etc, etc…”.  And to some extent it might be, to some extend it might not. One of, if not the hardest part about managing/leading a team is giving your team the opportunity to fail because at some point, the little voice in the back of your end starts connecting the dots and going “Red Alert!  Red Alert!  We’re going to crash”.  And

December 16, 2014

Greg Thomas

Respect thy Calendar

I live in Microsoft Outlook, not something that I originally had as a boyhood dream between being All-Star Cleveland Indians Catcher and Doctor, but hey such is life and I roll through a ton of email on a daily basis so it works.  With work and kids et al, I use my calendar for everything (primarily because it makes sure that I am where I need to be, when I need to be).  Over the years, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend where appointments become stacked on appointments which are already stacked on appointments.  There must be something that can be done…