I recently had a day off - by 'off' I mean no fixed appointments. I decided to work from home - but I found I got little done. I found the peace and quiet, the lack of telephone noise, the absence of colleague chatter quite disconcerting.  Is it because I need those things to remind

I was in Italy recently ... and I used public transport quite a bit - trains and buses.  All the journeys I made were on time, and to schedule. Of course, public transport is subsidised in most European countries - by governments as part of the national infrastructure.   This set me thinking about the

At the end of your next day at work ask yourself ... "If we carry on working like this on these tasks, how will we be different - and better - in 5 years time?"  If you cannot answer that, you need to do some things differently - or some additional things. Otherwise nothing is

I have been in discussions many times with businessmen and advisers about whether firms should concentrate on their productivity or their quality - which has the biggest impact on success. Of course the quick answer is "Both" - they are not mutually exclusive! But I remember listening to my colleague (and former president of WCPS)

We occasionally see reports or thoughts on the productivity of education - but it is a tricky situation to get to grips with ... partly because it is so hard to define outputs - and especially effective outputs.  Does it matter?  Isn't education something we just have to provide? Well, it matters.  Just take a

There are lots of sites and blogs on the web which purport to be about productivity.  Many of these are about what might be termed 'personal productivity' - time management, self-motivation, etc.  This set me thinking. Is there a natural connection between national productivity, organisational productivity and personal productivity? My own view - based solely

I can be as guilty as the next person is hailing specific concepts and practices as being important determinants of higher productivity.  But we should stop searching for the 'secret' - the panacea - and concentrate on the basics. Productivity is about good organisation, good planning, effective design of facilities, systems and processes, effective motivation

A personal 'productivity' tip sometimes referred to as 'Seinfeld's Chain' after Jerry Seinfeld, the US comedian is a useful reminder of the need to 'keep at it'.  The story is that, when he started writing, Seinfeld would mark each day he had spent his planned time actually writing by putting a big red cross through

Employees work - and work hard  - for various reasons. Obviously there are contractual reasons - they take the money and have to 'put in the hours'. But above and beyond what they are contracted to, most employees put in 'discretionary effort' - over and above the minimum, perhaps because they like what they do,