As any parent of a teenager will tell you (or any teenager, for that matter), music is personal nowadays. It’s a constant companion for many people who literally carry it with them everywhere they go. Music is also tied up in identity in a way that wasn’t as intense in previous generations. Criticize someone’s music, especially a young person, and it can feel like you are criticizing who they are.

But music can present a serious problem in the workplace when employees play it out loud in open office spaces, disrupting the productivity of coworkers and creating resentment that boils over in other areas. That isn’t good for anybody. (more…)

I once had a dream in which I was treading water in a vast ocean, and every project I was working on was floating just out of reach. Every time I reached for one, it bobbed further out. I just couldn’t get to it.

How many times a week does an email pop into your box asking about your progress on this or that project—and you find yourself saying, yet again, that you haven’t…quite… gotten to it yet.

Now here’s a question: How quickly did you answer that question when it popped into your inbox? If you’re like most people, you answered within two minutes. That’s because most of us leave our email open all day as we work. (more…)