Thinking is difficult. Make time for it

Schedule five blocks of 15 minutes in this week's schedule for thinking, recommends productivity consultant Jason Womack. If it works, you may want more. The Womack Report

Do the math on e-mails for better returns

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McGill University Professor Henry Mintzberg and its management dean Peter Todd recommend getting a handle on your e-mail burden by tallying the number of e-mails or text messages you received during a given week; the portion of those messages for which some action on your part was required; and your send/receive ratio (the number of messages you sent divided by those you received). Finally, look at your origination rate – the percentage of sent messages that you initiated, rather than messages that originated elsewhere to which you replied. Strategy+Business

A key question to gauge job applicants

Consultant Art Petty recommends using this question to probe candidates in job interviews: What are you doing to get better at what you do? ArtPetty.com

Free app lets you manage dual monitors

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Actual Multiple Monitors is a freeware application that allows you to manage all aspects of a dual monitor set-up on Microsoft Windows. This includes such issues as having different wallpaper on each, changing the primary monitor through a shortcut, and handling mouse cursor wrapping. AddictiveTips.com