PD Strategies Blog

What would you do if you just received a large monetary inheritance? Would make an extravagant expenditure, invest it, or pay down debt? When you get time do you approach it in the same manner? It is true that you will get more out of the time you have when you learn to get more out of your life. What do you want? What are your values? What do you believe and what are your priorities? The answer to these questions will determine how you spend your day. In order to get more out of you time, you need to know what you want to get out of it. There is a difference between spending time and investing time. According to Webster to spend is to use up, exhaust, or consume. In other words, if you spend you have no return. On the other hand, when you invest you do so...

Are you having trouble with getting rid of some of those bad habits? You have tried but you have not succeeded.  You would like to create some positive habits.    A person who has positive work habits, for example, will be much more likely to succeed than a person with negative work habits. In fact, habits have everything to do with our success or failure. That bad habit can cause us to continue to do things that are non-productive or destructive.  For example, you might have a habit of laying back and taking it easy.  This could place you in panic mode when you are up against a deadline.  This could cause you to fail to meet the deadline or fail to achieve good results.  All of this is the result of living in a comfort zone.  That comfort zone exists for us because we are deriving satisfaction for our current habits. ...

If you are a business owner, you so busy doing little things that you may feel like a hamster on a wheel. You may be spending too much time working in the day to day minutiae you are missing the big picture. Many blame the rapid pace of technology for this dilemma. Technology, while automating things that used to take much more time has also created new pressure. Instant communication on handheld devices gives us the sense of urgency and feeling that we must always be working. Everything seems to go faster, leaving everyone feeling overworked, overloaded, and overwhelmed.   If you are feeling this way it may be time to step back and look at your vision, your goals, and your overall purpose. Here are some tips to help you do that. 1. Know Your Purpose. Know your vision, your goals, and your plans because these help you set priorities. Each...

One of the biggest mistakes a business and hiring manager makes is hiring solely based on experience. I have seen the business owners in Westchester County New York beginning to understand this. In my last blog I spoke about leading indicators. Business owners should watch and base their decisions on these indicators. This brings me to the point of why you should not rely on experience. Experience is in the past. As mentioned in the last blog, “Past experience is no guarantee of future performance.   In Good to Great Jim Collins explains that building a great organization is as simple as “Getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” It may be simple but it’s not easy. You will need to change the way you hire people. Unfortunately, all too often managers tend to make hiring decisions...

A habit I see many times with my Westchester County New York business owners is that of putting off the most difficult projects as long as possible. Putting them off does not make them go away. In fact, it makes them seem more insurmountable. The real problem here is a behavior we call procrastination. Procrastination is something that we all have to confront and deal with from time to time. It's only natural to procrastinate at times, but the way you deal with your procrastination patterns will determine what effects procrastination has on your life. Why is it that so many people start out with good intentions to achieve a goal but never achieve that goal? When you procrastinate you simply fail to take action on the very things you know will bring you the rewards that you desire. You know you want the rewards and know you must take action...

Our success or failure is driven by our habits. In fact, habits have everything to do with our success or failure. A person with good work habits, for example, will be much more likely to succeed than a person without good work habits. Most organizations and people work on developing skills and knowledge.  However, problems and failures occur due to habits and behabiors. Habits can be good but they can also be harmful. A bad habit can cause us to continue to do things that are non-productive or destructive. For example, you might have a habit of laying back and taking it easy. The end result could be panic when you are up against a deadline. The end result could be failure to meet the deadline or failure to achieve good results. All of this is the result of living in a comfort zone. That comfort zone exists for us because...

Sometimes when we feel that we have trouble with time management our real problem is a behavior called procrastination. Time management is usually not a time management problem but a behavior problem. Procrastination is something that we all have to confront and deal with from time to time. It's only natural to procrastinate at times, but the way you deal with your procrastination patterns will determine what effects procrastination has on your life. Why is it that so many people start out with good intentions to achieve a goal but never achieve that goal? When you procrastinate you simply fail to take action on the very things you know will bring you the rewards that you desire. You know you want the rewards and know you must take action but you hold off, make excuses and, in short, procrastinate. Procrastination can be caused by a fear—a fear of failure or the...

Habits and Behaviors are the biggest obstacles to success in business. In my career in the corporate world as well as in my own business I have seen great time and effort on skills and knowledge training. Unfortunately most employee terminations and business failures occur because of habits and behaviors. I think it was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. If any of you have ever done an assessment with a coach or you have had a developmental assessment for your job you probably saw a section on the worksheet that is titled “I will stop doing…” If you are doing things that are harmful to your business why do you keep doing them? In most cases we are in a comfort zone and we don’t want to change because making any change will be uncomfortable. However, when we...