“Scope Creep” will Poison Your Projects!

“Scope creep is poisonous,” a client of mine recently said after finally finishing an academic paper he had been procrastinating on for more than three years. He had a full spaghetti snarl of reasons for not getting it done–and remember, our reasons for procrastinating are always valid–but after he worked through them and started to…

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Register Now for January Classes (Boston and Online)

New Englanders! Register Now for my winter Grub Street Writers classes! 1) How to Write a Lot, 6 Tuesdays, 10:30a – 1:30b, starting Jan 8 2) The Time of Your Life, Sat Jan 26, 10:30a – 6:30p Everyone! Register now for my next online class! The 7 Secrets of the Prolific, 4 weeks beginning Monday…

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Special Offer: Donate $1+ to Rolling Jubilee, Get Free Books!

Rolling Jubilee is the wonderful new program from Occupy Wall Street that purchases and retires distressed consumer debt: Rolling Jubilee is a…project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal.…

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Four Things Your College Career Center Got Dead Wrong

Over the years, I’ve helped many new graduates look for work; and one of the things I’ve learned is that a lot of the advice dispensed by college career centers is flawed. Below are four of the most common errors I see: three having to do with resumes (easily correctable), the fourth having to do…

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More on Millennials

Got a great response to my last blog post defending millennials (who should need no defense). Colorado-based writer Teresa Funke, author of the Home Front Heroes series of kids’ books about World War II—which would make a great holiday present for any book-loving kid you know (hint, hint)—wrote a particularly stirring reply and gave me…

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David Foster Wallace on Time Management

From a graduation speech he gave at Kenyon College in 2005: Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that…”Learning how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to…

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Are Millennials Spoiled?

In my workshops I teach the benefits of an antiperfectionist viewpoint: one that is compassionate, empathetic, nonjudgmental of yourself and others, etc. Yesterday, a 20-something participant raised the question of whether her and her generation had been too indulged (and thus weakened and infantalized) by excessive praise and other support from parents and others. The…

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How To Be An Effective Decision-Maker

I was recently interviewed by Entrepreneur.com for an article on decision making. The writer’s questions were excellent and thought provoking, and I wanted to share my answers with you. Best, Hillary Q: For leaders you’ve encountered or researched, how have you noticed that decision-making tends to get in the way of productivity? Can you give some specific…

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