This guidance recommends proactively scheduling time for your key responsibilities in the morning, versus afternoon or early evening, "when everyone’s gone."

Most of us are terrible at managing time. We are terrible because first, you can’t manage time, and two, we don’t switch to thinking about our priorities, and managing THEM. And, alas, for many of us, as managers, if we DO schedule time for them, we do it at the END of our days – consigning them to the ash heap. Here’s what really effective professionals do.

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How to improve your effectiveness by eliminating long open periods from of your calendar.

Many managers we know (ourselves included) LIKE having longer unscheduled blocks of time on their calendars. This is antithetical to effectiveness. Let’s manage our calendars differently.

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This guidance describes the fundamental error in trying to achieve “Work-Family Balance” and how to solve it forever.

The Work-Family Balance challenge is such a common question that it inevitably becomes one of the first answers Mark gives when he takes open questions at gatherings.

The answer to the problem is simple, and it starts with understanding that we have all been solving the wrong problem.

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The conclusion of our guidance on what to do instead of multi-tasking.

We've said often on air that multi-tasking is a lie. We don't mince our words, and we totally mean it. Multi-tasking is impossible for humans. It's not even possible for computers. In the early days they just switched between tasks so quickly that it seemed as if they were multi-tasking. Nowadays they have multiple chips, so it can be argued they are multi-tasking, but you still only have one brain, so the argument doesn't help you.

Yes, you can rub your belly and pat your head at the same time. How much concentration does that take though? If we do it, we can't do anything else, because doing those two things simultaneously takes up our WHOLE brain.

We sometimes show this video at our conferences: Test Your Awareness: Do The Test. In it, you're asked to look out for the number of passes the basketball players make. Something else happens in the video, which if you haven't seen it before, you won't see. Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MULTITASK! If you are counting basketball passes (a relatively simple task) you cannot see the other things that happen.

And, it doesn't matter if you're male or female, old or young, computer savvy or technically barely literate. No-one can multi-task. It's just not in our physiology. (Humans differ by .1% from each other, so we're all a lot more the same that we are different).

Those of you who are thinking, but this isn't me .. *I* can multi-task, you're wrong, but apparently not being convinced. Please try and experiment with us. Try these techniques for just a week and see if your output improves. If it doesn't, you can go back to multi-tasking with our blessing.

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Our guidance on what to do instead of multi-tasking.

We've said often on air that multi-tasking is a lie. We don't mince our words, and we totally mean it. Multi-tasking is impossible for humans. It's not even possible for computers. In the early days they just switched between tasks so quickly that it seemed as if they were multi-tasking. Nowadays they have multiple chips, so it can be argued they are multi-tasking, but you still only have one brain, so the argument doesn't help you.

Yes, you can rub your belly and pat your head at the same time. How much concentration does that take though? If we do it, we can't do anything else, because doing those two things simultaneously takes up our WHOLE brain.

We sometimes show this video at our conferences: Test Your Awareness: Do The Test. In it, you're asked to look out for the number of passes the basketball players make. Something else happens in the video, which if you haven't seen it before, you won't see. Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MULTITASK! If you are counting basketball passes (a relatively simple task) you cannot see the other things that happen.

And, it doesn't matter if you're male or female, old or young, computer savvy or technically barely literate. No-one can multi-task. It's just not in our physiology. (Humans differ by .1% from each other, so we're all a lot more the same that we are different).

Those of you who are thinking, but this isn't me .. *I* can multi-task, you're wrong, but apparently not being convinced. Please try and experiment with us. Try these techniques for just a week and see if your output improves. If it doesn't, you can go back to multi-tasking with our blessing.

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This cast concludes our discussion on how to use your calendar more proactively.

We regularly get requests from managers wanting to know how they can either be a good executive, or increase their chances of becoming one. We often get the sense that they're asking because they think there's something different or hidden that makes for an effective executive. There is just an air of their questions and assumptions that there's a mystique around becoming or being an executive.

We don't think that's really true. We can understand it. It certainly is a harder job than most people realize, and almost no one understands how demanding being a very senior executive is at a large multi-national corporation. It's not for the faint of heart.

But as for being effective, there are all kinds of things managers can do as managers that will prepare them to be an effective executive.

It's probably frustrating to hear, but many of the activities or strategies or tactics – most of them, in fact – are available to anyone, and are just basic blocking and tackling around effectiveness and efficiency in general. And when it comes to effectiveness, the first lever is time. Most of us are terrible around our "time management" skills, but really good executives are really good at it.

Right of First Refusal is one of the ways they do it, and you can too.

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This guidance describes how to use your calendar more proactively.

We regularly get requests from managers wanting to know how they can either be a good executive, or increase their chances of becoming one. We often get the sense that they're asking because they think there's something different or hidden that makes for an effective executive. There is just an air of their questions and assumptions that there's a mystique around becoming or being an executive.

We don't think that's really true. We can understand it. It certainly is a harder job than most people realize, and almost no one understands how demanding being a very senior executive is at a large multi-national corporation. It's not for the faint of heart.

But as for being effective, there are all kinds of things managers can do as managers that will prepare them to be an effective executive.

It's probably frustrating to hear, but many of the activities or strategies or tactics – most of them, in fact – are available to anyone, and are just basic blocking and tackling around effectiveness and efficiency in general. And when it comes to effectiveness, the first lever is time. Most of us are terrible around our "time management" skills, but really good executives are really good at it.

Right of First Refusal is one of the ways they do it, and you can too.

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This cast helps you be more efficient in following up.

We've talked about following up in numerous Career Tools casts. It's one of the marks of a true professional. People who follow up well, who don't let things fall through the cracks and who are in control of their workload stand out from the crowd. So how do you become one of those people?

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This cast describes a simple technique for controlling one's calendar, thereby keeping more time available for primary objectives.

Have you ever left the office thinking, hey, I got everything done today? All my projects, all those things on the backburner, finally everything is done?

We know how hard it is to get everything done every day – we never do. In fact, when we think about it, we realize we don't know anyone who DOES get everything done, EVER. Which makes us wonder, IS there some way to get everything done? And if there isn't, what's the best way to approach all of that work?

Here's a simple start in the right direction.

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This cast describes an executive priority management technique – "One Less Thing" – to free up your calendar.

There's so much credibility in being busy, most of us don't realize that having some free time is necessary during times of great change. Why? Well, if we're all busy, and we don't have time to do anything else, how are we going to fit in the new stuff that comes down from our boss?