What Keeps You on Top of Your Game?
Posted on Thursday, May 21, 2009 by Frank RocheI do the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. I can rip through Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday at will. Thursday takes a little more time. Friday takes my entire train ride. I’m thankful I don’t measure time-to-complete for Saturday. Sunday, ah, Sunday. I’ll do some, then set it down. Do some more later. Pick it up again late in the afternoon and fill in the remaining squares.
Why do I spend the time playing with puzzles? Because I’m in the word business. I write for a living. I find that doing puzzles keeps me sharp on word plays (and the occasional pun). It’s an investment in my job. I also read a lot. My Google Reader, for example, showed these stats today: “From your 144 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 2,854 items, starred 31 items, shared 8 items, and emailed 10 items.”
I read two newspapers a day. A book a week. And I still find time to watch Jeopardy!, Deadliest Catch and a few Phillies games. It’s about learning something new every day.
In HR, one of our jobs is to encourage continuous improvement. A big part of that is continuous learning.
Here’s the question of the day: What have we taught our people today that they didn’t know yesterday?
Bill Strahan
May 24th, 2009
I look at something creative everyday (like knowhr.com/blog)
One that works especially well for me is the advertising that is featured at http://www.creativity-online.com
Seeing the way others communicate effectively keeps me fresh about the marketing of rewards in my organization.
Ben Eubanks
Jun 18th, 2009
I run. Often. It makes a huge difference in whether I am mentally alert during the day or not. Paradoxically, running gives me MORE energy to take care of my assorted tasks. Go figure.
Frank Roche
Jun 18th, 2009
@Ben…exercise does work. I need to put in more time with that!