Life Of E's

Student evaluations are a part of every faculty member’s life. Some consider them to be a positive part of the academic life and others dismiss them as a meaningless exercise (or even worse, as a detriment to good teaching). You might as well know that I come down on the side of student evaluations being [...]

Tags: positive, Professors, students, teachers, teaching, tips, work

How can you stay in the present (mentally) – or get to the present? Here are 5 strategies: Breathe. The idea is that you breathe in. Then you breathe out. This helps you to get centered – and somewhere I read that the space between breathing in and breathing out – that’s the present. So [...]

Tags: distractions, energy, focus, positive, Productivity, success, tips

Let us say that you have decided to close the door to negative people (figuratively, of course). What is tough about this decision is that sometimes the negative people work in our offices (or live in our homes or are related to us in some way). Deciding to “close the door” on the people who [...]

Tags: focus, positive, Productivity, success, tips

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan In life, “A door must either be shut or open.” (Anonymous); I think that means we need to determine which doors we [...]

Tags: distractions, focus, positive, Productivity, success, tips

Eric Hoffer said, “A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.” When you are deciding where to ‘live’ – in the past, in the future, in the present (or some other cosmic option you might know about) living in [...]

Tags: distractions, energy, focus, positive, stress, success

“If I had to characterize one quality as the genius of female thought, culture, and action, it would be the connectivity.” ~Robin Morgan Here are some simple ways to make connections with others (and it is OK to read this even if you are a man). These are deceptively simple ideas. And, part of what [...]

Tags: communication, positive, Productivity, success, tips

You may have noticed something that I’ve noticed:  Some of the people we are around who are the most negative appear not to be thankful for one single thing. And I have to believe that there is not a person alive who is unable to find something for which to be thankful. What always strikes [...]

Tags: focus, just whelmed, positive, success, tips

Have you ever tried to control other people?  How does that work out?  Are any of the folks around you a bit negative?  Can you change that?  Although we can’t CONTROL others, we can impinge on, have an impact on, and influence them. Knowing what is possible and what is reasonable is the crux of [...]

Tags: energy, focus, positive, Productivity, stress, success, tips

How is it working for you to be trying to control others?  Probably not so great!  Should you give up or at least try to have some kind of impact on them so that they can be more positive, too (like you are). Draw a series of 4 interlocking circles that go from right to [...]

Tags: positive, Productivity, success, tips

Let’s think about the orange cones of language. As verbal beings, language is a key element in the way that we communicate with one another and even with ourselves. We think in words and we speak, write, and telegraph (do people even do that anymore?) in words or representations of words. And, words are labels [...]

Tags: business, Coaching, distractions, focus, positive, Productivity, stress, success, tips, work