Posts by Lionel Valdellon
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Lionel Valdellon

Lionel Valdellon

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Lionel is a former Content Marketing Manager of Wrike. He is also a blogger since 1997, a productivity enthusiast, a project management newbie, a musician and producer of electronic downtempo music, a father of three, and a husband of one.

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Age Discrimination is Everybody's Problem
Leadership 7 min read

Age Discrimination is Everybody's Problem

Age discrimination is very real for large numbers of the working population in any country. How do you deal with it as a leader?

Spend Less Time Working & More Time Learning (Work Management Roundup)
Productivity 3 min read

Spend Less Time Working & More Time Learning (Work Management Roundup)

It's Friday, dear readers. The week's best work-related and productivity-centered reads await you in our Work Management roundup! Some of the most interesting links this week talk about how working less (and learning more) will lead to more satisfaction with your life. Curious? Read on! Why We Should Spend Less Time Working, and More Time Living & Learning (Open Culture): In this long-form blog post, read how two 20th century thought leaders — Buckminster Fuller (American architect/inventor & visionary) and Bertrand Russell (British philosopher & social critic) — both challenged the notion that we must have wage-earning jobs in order to lead fulfilling lives. Their view: we are entitled to indulge our passions and interests even if it leads to no monetary gain. How To Create (At Least) An Extra Week Per Month for Professional Development (Michelle Ockers): "That's all good and well," you say after reading the article above, "but where do you get the time to devote to learning?" Michelle Ockers has a solution: a little bit everyday, especially in the mornings when the brain is freshest. Read her 4 principles for making time for professional development. Getting More Done At Work Won’t Make You As Happy As Just Working Less (Fast Co. Exist): And then there's this article which correlates money, employment, and overall life satisfaction, and shares this food-for-thought: "In that sense, being productive at work helps— but only if you think it’ll lead to a raise." 3 Surprising Habits That Will Increase Your Joy at Work (Inc.com): But if you really want to be happy at work and satisfied with your career decisions, then you have to stop listening to the absolutes being fed to you by other people and start listening to yourself. Here are 3 habits that might help you. Start Something: The Power of Side Projects (Medium): While we're talking about happiness at work, why not start a side project that uses your talents and incites your curiosity? After all, that's how Uber, Instagram, and StumbleUpon all started. More Work Management Reads Think About This: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute (The Atlantic) Road Warrior Productivity: 9 Tips & 8 Tools for Being Productive While Traveling (Wrike) Why Entrepreneurs Should Never Feel Guilty for Sleeping (Infographic) (Entrepreneur) Why I Unfollowed You on Instagram: The Social Network is Yesterday, The Interest Feed is Tomorrow (Medium) Factors that Influence Startup Success in 2015 (Infographic) (Design Hill) Go Try This: Two Useless Phrases You Must Eliminate from Emails (Fast Company) Night School: Does Sleep Learning Work? (Aeon) How Should You Be Marketing to Generation Z Through Social? (Infographic) (Adweek) 6 Lists You Need to Make Everyday Productive (Fast Company) A Productivity Lesson from the Prison Debate Team that Defeated Harvard (Cal Newport's Study Hacks) Browse Productivity Works on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your laptop or mobile, then you'll enjoy our magazine on productivity tips. Check out Productivity Works or click on the widget below: View my Flipboard Magazine.

Why Are Habits Important for Productivity?
Productivity 3 min read

Why Are Habits Important for Productivity?

Productivity is simply a matter of choosing to work smart every day. Ask successful people their productivity secret and they’ll typically say it’s consistent daily habits. But what exactly are habits, and why are productive work habits so difficult to form? Our short Slideshare tackles these questions in 14 slides, sharing input from neuroscience, psychology, and business leadership experience. Key takeaways: Habits take up 45% of daily life. Habits are "autopilot" behaviors which save our energy for creative problem solving. 45% of these habitual actions are even done at the same location every day. It takes approximately 66 days to form a new habit. More details in the actual presentation below: Check out the "Productive Work Habits" presentation on Slideshare  And if you want to discover concrete tips for forming productive habits in your workplace, download our free eBook: 5 Strategies for Forming Team Productivity Habits.  

Timeline Snapshot: Share Project Plans and Status with Anyone
News 3 min read

Timeline Snapshot: Share Project Plans and Status with Anyone

Wouldn't it be so much easier if you could simply show clients, partners, and colleagues an up-to-date project timeline instead of manually preparing reports? Well, great news: now you can!  Today we released the Timeline Snapshot. You can take a picture of your project plans on the Timeline and instantly share it with anyone via a public link — even with people who don't have a Wrike account. (Though it might also be a good time to invite them to Wrike.) Timeline Snapshots make your communications more efficient. By sending your colleagues a photo of your workload and project plans, they get an instant look at work progress and you save time explaining and generating reports, with an automatic look into the high visibility project meaning.  It will be especially useful for agencies and B2B freelancers who need to share project estimates with clients and partners, or executives who report on progress to investors. Nonprofits will find it useful for sharing milestones and project roadmaps with their board, or even sending this snapshot out to donors via newsletter. Local governments and municipalities can easily share project plans with constituents. Ditto for managers who need to share Gantt charts with other departments that don't use Wrike. As always, you can share your data in an easy and secure way. Whenever someone creates a new Timeline Snapshot, you'll see a corresponding entry in the Activity Stream. Anytime you can delete any of the snapshots as some of them get outdated. If there's anything we've learned from Instagram, it's that sometimes it's easier to convey a whole lot of information in a single picture — even if it is a Gantt chart selfie.

Top 5 Things That Stress Workers Out (Work Management Roundup)
Productivity 3 min read

Top 5 Things That Stress Workers Out (Work Management Roundup)

It's Friday, friends! Which means there's a week's worth of good reads waiting for you here in the weekly Work Management roundup! This week we bring you links to articles that will help you excel in the workplace. The 5 Things That Stress People Out the Most At Work (Inc.com): Stress is a common roadblock to productivity at work. But what are the top 5 causes of stress at work? This article tackles the top "what"s and "why"s, according to 1,500 survey respondents of the 2015 Work Management Survey Report. Individual Productivity? No. It's About Team Productivity (LinkedIn): With so much focus on personal productivity especially within the workplace, there's been a significant lack of talk surrounding how to make entire teams more productive. Here are 3 tips. The High Cost of Multitasking (Wrike): The problem is that when we jump from task to task, we aren’t really getting more done. Instead, we’re forcing our brains to constantly switch gears, which means we're exhausting our mental reserves and working harder to do things at a lower level of quality. 15 Things Every Newbie Needs to Know About Starting a Business (Entrepreneur): Brandon Turner shares 15 of the biggest lessons he's learned over the past decade about building and growing a business. And some of them are surprising. How to Ditch Your To-Do List (LinkedIn): Productivity author Tony Robbins explains how to-do lists focus only on what you need to get done. Checking them off doesn't necessarily mean you’re actually making any real progress. More Work Management Reads Think About This: The Mechanics of MVP Software Development (MentorMate) The Price We Pay for Sitting Too Much (Wall Street Journal) The Book I Always Recommend to First-Time Managers (Medium) Go Try This: At last! A Cheat Sheet for Writing Blog Posts That Explode Traffic (3 Simple Hacks) (Inbound.org) All The Productivity Tips You Need In 9 Infographics (Lifehack.org) 5 Unsubscribe Emails That Made Me Smile (Nudgespot Blog) Productivity Experts Share their 10 Best Tips for a Morning Routing Makeover (Fast Company) 2 Simple Email Marketing Tricks You Should Be Using (TheNextWeb) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your laptop or mobile, then you can also read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.

How to Use Wrike for Content Planning
Marketing 5 min read

How to Use Wrike for Content Planning

It is crucial to plan ahead so you always have ideas at the ready. It's even better if you have finished and recyclable content pieces that can be published at a moment's notice. That's the purpose of this blog post: to walk you through a three-part process for planning out your content in advance of deadlines and sudden needs.

3 Crucial Keys to Creative Project Management
Project Management 5 min read

3 Crucial Keys to Creative Project Management

If you think overseeing creative projects and supervising creative teams is the same as managing a project with software developers or a manufacturing crew, you may want to think again. Every group has its own quirks and unique concerns that must be taken into consideration if you're going to be an effective leader. Below are the three crucial keys to successfully managing a project with creatives.

Would Your Company Survive a 6-Hour Workday? (Work Management Roundup)
Productivity 3 min read

Would Your Company Survive a 6-Hour Workday? (Work Management Roundup)

It's Friday, which means it's time for the weekly Work Management roundup! And since it's the first Friday of October, it's also National Manufacturing Day. So, just a little aside: kudos to all who build and manufacture goods and services here in America. Anyway, this week we have compiled links to articles that will help you build yourself into a better worker. Sweden is Shifting to Six-Hour Workdays (FastCoExist): It's been proven that clocking in longer hours is detrimental to both the individual and the organization, which is why Sweden is taking that info to heart. The six-hour workday is becoming more and more common for Swedish companies as organizations strive for a better work/life balance. The Top 6 Free "Getting Things Done" Software (Capterra): So you want to get organized, and you need some tech recommendations? These 6 GTD tools are free for at least one user. Check them all out. The Best Time for a Break Might Be Mid-Morning, Not the Afternoon (Lifehacker): New research suggests that it’s better to take a break before you’ve used up your mental resources, in order to actually refresh and recuperate your mind and body — which means taking breaks earlier in the day. How to Fly Like a Pro (Business Insider): Do you travel a lot for work? Sick of the stress of flying? Here are twenty illustrated tips on how to fly like a pro. For example: avoid coffee & drink green tea instead (so you don't dehydrate yourself). 17 Books to Inspire Creative Teams (Wrike): If you're part of a creative team, you need to feed the mind to ensure that you never run out of fresh ideas. This list of 17 books will inspire you and provide you with energy and creative juice for the work ahead. More Work Management Reads Think About This: Why Having Friends at Work is So Important (Fast Company) How Louis C. K. Became Funny and Why it Matters (Cal Newport's Study Hacks) Go Try This: Forget Business School--Just Watch These 10 TED Talks (Inc) 15 Types of Photos You Can Tweet (Even if Your Product is Ugly) (AdWeek) How to Stop Micromanaging Your Team (Harvard Business Review) 7 Ways to Ensure Fans Don't Miss Your Facebook Page Updates (Marketing Profs) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine. Image Credit: The Evening Commute by Jamie McCaffreyon Flickr. Some rights reserved. Changes made.

Top 10 Add-ons for Adobe Premiere
Marketing 5 min read

Top 10 Add-ons for Adobe Premiere

For video professionals, Adobe Premiere Pro is one of those powerful tools that allow you to bring a vision to life onscreen. And Premiere Pro gives users a large assortment of add-ons that can help expand your options for editing and compositing your videos. Here are the top 10 most useful and most popular Adobe Premiere Pro add-ons, both paid and free.

Stop Procrastination by Understanding the Underlying Emotions (Work Management Roundup)
Productivity 3 min read

Stop Procrastination by Understanding the Underlying Emotions (Work Management Roundup)

It's Friday, which means it's time for the Friday Roundup. But even better, it's September 25th, which also happens to be National Comic Book Day! In honor of that, we present to you the latest batch of links to articles that will make you a superhero in the workplace, at home, and yes, they'll even power your project management. Up, up, and away! To Stop Procrastinating, Start By Understanding the Emotions (Wall Street Journal): Procrastination is an emotional reaction brought on by stress. If stress is your kryptonite, then time management strategies can only get you so far. You will need to conquer it by first understanding the emotional reasons for why you delay work. If you can, you'll soon become invincible. 4 Tricks to Sharpen Your Mind at Work (Wired): While these tips won't turn you into the genius Professor X from X-Men, they will allow you to tackle work with fresh energy, and give you a sharp perspective that might seem a little superhuman to your colleagues. 5 Project Management Lessons to Learn from Superheroes (Wrike): Spider Man, Green Lantern, Thor, and others superheroes all have something to teach you about project management. Learn something to boost your leadership from these famous leaders. Creative Exercises for Creative Teams (Medium): If your super creative team faces the evil menace called artist's block (it threatens to destroy all work!), then choose an idea from this list of 29 creative exercises that are sure to get the ideas flowing once again. 131 Actionable Ideas from Ten Books I Wish I Had Read Ages Ago (Medium): Here's a collection of the important action items from 10 books on productivity, habit-building, and business. It's Cliff Notes for workers who are too busy to read full books, but still want to power up their skills. Long Hours Backfire for Companies and Workers (Harvard Business Review): Research proves that working long hours harms workers and inevitably, companies. It's a story of burnout and diminishing returns. And if you keep at it too long, even superheroes can begin to wilt. More Work Management Must-Reads: Powerful Lists 26 of The Best Collaboration Apps for Your Team (Medium) 54 Seriously Cool Apps to Make Everyone’s Lives Easier (Wrike) 131 Actionable Ideas from Ten Books I Wish I Had Read Ages Ago (Medium) 100 incredible things I learned watching 70 hours of TED talks last week (A Life of Productivity) Insightful Essays Multi-tasking: how to survive in the 21st century (FT.com) What's Worse for Your Career: Boredom or Stress? (USNews) This Graphic Explains 20 Cognitive Biases That Affect Your Decision-Making (Lifehacker) How to Test and Validate Startup Ideas (Medium) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine. Image credit: life, cubed 08.12.09 [224] by timlewisnm on Flickr. Some rights reserved. Changes made.

Age Gaps & Toxic Startup Culture — a Book Review of Disrupted by Dan Lyons
Collaboration 5 min read

Age Gaps & Toxic Startup Culture — a Book Review of Disrupted by Dan Lyons

Author Daniel Lyons recounts his year spent in startup hell (technically, marketing automation startup HubSpot) and his story is equal parts LOL and WTF. It’s a fascinating peek behind the scenes of a growing company as well as a scathing commentary on startups in general.

10 Deadly Signs Your Culture is Toxic
Collaboration 7 min read

10 Deadly Signs Your Culture is Toxic

But just as you can build a healthy company culture by injecting meaning and mission into your daily grind, you could also ignore it totally, decide not to fight for it ... and watch how the bullies and less desirable elements take over and turn the workplace into a toxic arena of one-upmanship and verbal takedowns. Here are 10 warning signs to watch out for. Nip it in the bud — if you care about your company.

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