Hello to the guys at Project M Lab

worth checking out.....www.projectmlab.com and what they've got to say.

We just want to change the world.

Sure, we may not be known in the in circles. We may not fill the pages of design annuals. And we may never see our names in lights. But, we do know how to save the rain forest with a waterproof book. We do know how to build a park with a postcard. And we know how to bring water to a community with a few pages of newsprint.

We are part of a design movement. We believe that ability equals responsibility. And we are not the only ones. So, we built a lab where designers like you can make a difference. We are building the tools that will build the future. And this is where you come in. They've got an amazing pop up cafe called pielab.............. it's winning loads of design and eco awards in the US.

It's a refreshing movement to see in the 21st century.
pielab.org

Danish kitchenware maker Bodum may be best known for their simple coffee makers. Their clean design, perfect functionality, and ability to make an amazing cup of coffee on the cheap has made the name Bodum synonymous with the French Press. But they actually have a much broader spectrum of products than the classic glass plunger-carafe, and their new rugged-ish Bistro line looks fantastic.

Catering to Scandinavians and those who wish their kitchens were Scandinavian, the Bistro line is bright, bold, simple, and functional. It's ballsy as well; covered in rubber with little grippy rubber numbs in odd places, the line is unmistakably modern.

After the iPad officially opened to pre-order on Friday, CNN took a sample of iPad and other Apple product purchasers to try to get a glimpse at how exactly the fabled tablet is doing in sales. The conclusion? Damn well--but that's not the whole story.

Based on a sampling, CNN estimates the total product sales at Apple's online store to be about 125,000 on Friday. Once you subtract the average sales of 16,500 and multiply by the average number of iPads bought (1.1), you come up with just shy of 120,000 iPads sold. It's an estimate, sure, but a conservative one, and that number is reasonable.

Interestingly, we also find out that that 1.1 order per person is lower than expected; Apple capped the number of iPads per person at 2, but it seems like they needn't have bothered. Aside from that, we find that all three versions by capacity (16GB, 32GB, and 64GB) sold almost exactly equally, but about 70% opted for the Wi-Fi-only model, compared to 30% for the 3G model. That latter stat makes a bit more sense when we take launch dates into consideration: the 3G model won't be out for a few weeks after the Wi-Fi-only model, and those pre-ordering want to get their hands on an iPad as soon as possible.

We don't have pre-order numbers for the original 2G iPhone, which would really be the only fair comparison (the 3GS pre-orders were far higher, but that was the third generation of the hardware; the iPad is only the first of its kind). Still, for the first day of pre-ordering (not even real purchasing--these people have never touched an iPad in real life!), those are big numbers.

Singha Beer increases sponsorship on Red Bull Racing

Red Bull Racing has announced that Singha Beer, which has a team supplier for the past two years, has increased their sponsorship to become a team partner for this season. The Thailand based company's branding will now be seen on the cockpit area of the Red Bull RB6.

Boonrawd Srethaputra started the Boon Rawd Brewery in 1933, and with it's Singha brand was the first producer of beer in Thailand. The company expanded internationally in the 1970s, and is now sold in over 44 countries.

Team Principal Christian Horner said, "It's great news that Singha Beer has reconfirmed and increased its commitment to Red Bull Racing for the coming season. There is strong synergy between the two brands due to their similar Thai origins; the Thai background of Singha Beer fits well with the strong Thai roots of Red Bull. We're delighted to welcome Singha Beer as a Team Partner and we look forward to working with them throughout our 2010 Championship campaign."

Voravud Bhirombhakdi, a descendant of the founder said, "Through this global partnership with Red Bull Racing, Singha Corporation aims to promote Formula One in Thailand and the Singha brand globally. We are confident that this is the beginning of an exciting, successful and synergized partnership between Red Bull Racing and Singha for years to come. We partnered the team in 2009 for the Japanese GP, which resulted in a victory, and we are pleased to partner the team for a whole season. We are confident that the 2010 season will be a victorious one."

Renault F1 Announce HP Sponsorship Agreement

On the eve of the first F1 practice session of the year, the Renault F1 Team have announced a major sponsorship deal with technology company Hewlett-Packard. The new agreement means the R30 cars will run with significant HP branding adorning the bodywork.

The team will also obtain access to HP technology in order to further develop simulation technologies on the back of HP High Performance Computing servers. Additionally HP will help the team to reduce its carbon footprint, by implementing 'greener' data centres, and utilising low-energy-consumption workstations.

Renault F1 Team Chairman, Gérard Lopez commented:

"F1 has a proven ability to boost brand awareness around the world, and we are proud that Renault F1 Team will be HP's partner of choice in achieving this goal."

A rather optimistic HP representative noted the company intended to offer the best technology to support Renault F1 in their quest for victory.

Hewlett-Packard have long been using Formula One as means of promoting technological development, running a major branding campaign on the Williams teams cars from 2002 to 2005.

Thanks to a great bunch of input from some USA industry gurus.....

Answer your mobile

don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Live by the "Two-Pizza" Rule

Answer the Phone

Organize Your Daily Interruptions

Always Be Interviewing

Hire for Flexibility

Rank Items on Your To-Do List

Use E-mail to Document

Use a Wiki to Capture Ideas

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

Live by the "Two-Pizza" Rule

Answer the Phone

Organize Your Daily Interruptions

Always Be Interviewing

Hire for Flexibility

Rank Items on Your To-Do List

Use E-mail to Document

Use a Wiki to Capture Ideas

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Barbara Corcoran made her mark building one of New York’s largest real estate companies. Today, she is a panelist on the ABC program Shark Tank and runs a much smaller firm that works with the start-ups she chooses to invest in on that show.

"When scheduling travel and social activities, I like to communicate plans through e-mail to both family and colleagues to keep an easy record of correspondence rather than relying on a possibly hurried conversation."

Karl Hoagland is the founder of Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants, in Larkspur, California. It recorded $20 million in sales in 2009.

"A lot of productivity is capturing ideas. I use a wiki—it’s more valuable than e-mail for running a company—and I have a page for every person with whom I interact frequently."

Garrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon, a Web service in San Francisco that helps users find relevant content based on others’ recommendations.

"I get almost as much done outside normal office hours as during them. I’ll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. If I’m trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, I’ll come in on the weekend, when there’s less going on, and spend a day focusing on it. I read technology manuals and watch video tutorials late at night. During start-up, I think you have the choice of being productive or having a social life, and I’ve choosen being productive."

Seth Priebatsch (center) is CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games.

"If I think something is going to take me an hour, I give myself 40 minutes. By shrinking your mental deadlines, you work faster and with greater focus. I also schedule time every week on my calendar for quiet, concentrated PowerTime where I only work on my most important activities. A “Stop Doing” list is as important as a “To Do” list. A “To Do” list is easy, you just keep adding to it and the more you have on it, the more important you may feel. But “Stop Doing” is more difficult because you have to give up some things."

Krissi Barr is the founder of Barr Corporate Success, a business consulting firm in Cincinnati. She is also the author of Plugged – How To Dig Out and Get The Right Things Done.

"With the exception of one or two days a year, I work out every single day. Fitting a workout into the work day reduces stress, keeps you healthy, and is great for getting “alone time” to work out business and personal problems. When someone asks for a non work-related meeting, see if they are up for doing the meeting while running or biking together. Work out at lunchtime and then eat at your desk."

Always Be Interviewing

Hire for Flexibility

Rank Items on Your To-Do List

Use E-mail to Document

Use a Wiki to Capture Ideas

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Rank Items on Your To-Do List

Use E-mail to Document

Use a Wiki to Capture Ideas

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Barbara Corcoran made her mark building one of New York’s largest real estate companies. Today, she is a panelist on the ABC program Shark Tank and runs a much smaller firm that works with the start-ups she chooses to invest in on that show.

"When scheduling travel and social activities, I like to communicate plans through e-mail to both family and colleagues to keep an easy record of correspondence rather than relying on a possibly hurried conversation."

Karl Hoagland is the founder of Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants, in Larkspur, California. It recorded $20 million in sales in 2009.

"A lot of productivity is capturing ideas. I use a wiki—it’s more valuable than e-mail for running a company—and I have a page for every person with whom I interact frequently."

Garrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon, a Web service in San Francisco that helps users find relevant content based on others’ recommendations.

"I get almost as much done outside normal office hours as during them. I’ll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. If I’m trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, I’ll come in on the weekend, when there’s less going on, and spend a day focusing on it. I read technology manuals and watch video tutorials late at night. During start-up, I think you have the choice of being productive or having a social life, and I’ve choosen being productive."

Seth Priebatsch (center) is CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games.

"If I think something is going to take me an hour, I give myself 40 minutes. By shrinking your mental deadlines, you work faster and with greater focus. I also schedule time every week on my calendar for quiet, concentrated PowerTime where I only work on my most important activities. A “Stop Doing” list is as important as a “To Do” list. A “To Do” list is easy, you just keep adding to it and the more you have on it, the more important you may feel. But “Stop Doing” is more difficult because you have to give up some things."

Krissi Barr is the founder of Barr Corporate Success, a business consulting firm in Cincinnati. She is also the author of Plugged – How To Dig Out and Get The Right Things Done.

"With the exception of one or two days a year, I work out every single day. Fitting a workout into the work day reduces stress, keeps you healthy, and is great for getting “alone time” to work out business and personal problems. When someone asks for a non work-related meeting, see if they are up for doing the meeting while running or biking together. Work out at lunchtime and then eat at your desk."

Mike Cassidy is the CEO of travel and tour site Ruba. He has also been the co-founder and CEO of Xfire (a company that helps gamers play online with their friends), Direct Hit (an internet search engine), and Sylus Innovation (which produced a computer telephony software).

"For me, a big part of productivity is being agile. I like to leave a lot of blocks in my day open. On an average day, I'm only 50 percent scheduled, though occasionally it gets as high as 80 percent. That's imperative, because often something comes up out of nowhere. Recently, for example, an important new partner came to the office and unexpectedly brought the CEO. The team came to me and said, "Oh, my God; their CEO came. Do you have a window this afternoon?" I had a window. And at the end of the hour the CEO and I spent together, we'd identified new markets and positioned the company to be a global as well as domestic partner. If I have a free block and nothing presents itself, I catch up on industry reports, self-education, and big-picture thinking. In a packed schedule, those things can get neglected. They shouldn't be."

Scott Lang is CEO of Silver Spring Networks, a developer of smart energy grids, based in Redwood City, California.

"Don't multitask. Multitasking is something we all do these days. The problem is our brains just aren’t cut out for it. When you multitask, you’re interfering with your brain’s ability to perform at max-capacity. Yes, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can fold laundry while talking to a friend on the phone. Clowns can ride a unicycle while juggling brightly colored balls. These are role tasks that don’t demand a lot of brain power. But in most cases, multitasking=lesstasking. When you make those shifts from one context to another, you risk dropping things from your short-term memory. Do one thing at a time, minimize context shifts, maximize brain power!"

Douglas Merrill is the author of “Getting Organized in the Google Era” and former CIO of Google.

"The most difficult aspect of being a CEO is you driving your day, and not letting the day drive you. By looking through tasks each morning and resolving to allocate the time to concentrate on the CEO priorities, the actions only the CEO can take to move the company forward, you can keep your eye on moving the company forward. At the end of the day, I always checked whether I had taken action on my top three priorities. If the answer was "no," I stayed in the office until I made progress on them."

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Barbara Corcoran made her mark building one of New York’s largest real estate companies. Today, she is a panelist on the ABC program Shark Tank and runs a much smaller firm that works with the start-ups she chooses to invest in on that show.

"When scheduling travel and social activities, I like to communicate plans through e-mail to both family and colleagues to keep an easy record of correspondence rather than relying on a possibly hurried conversation."

Karl Hoagland is the founder of Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants, in Larkspur, California. It recorded $20 million in sales in 2009.

"A lot of productivity is capturing ideas. I use a wiki—it’s more valuable than e-mail for running a company—and I have a page for every person with whom I interact frequently."

Garrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon, a Web service in San Francisco that helps users find relevant content based on others’ recommendations.

"I get almost as much done outside normal office hours as during them. I’ll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. If I’m trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, I’ll come in on the weekend, when there’s less going on, and spend a day focusing on it. I read technology manuals and watch video tutorials late at night. During start-up, I think you have the choice of being productive or having a social life, and I’ve choosen being productive."

Seth Priebatsch (center) is CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games.

"If I think something is going to take me an hour, I give myself 40 minutes. By shrinking your mental deadlines, you work faster and with greater focus. I also schedule time every week on my calendar for quiet, concentrated PowerTime where I only work on my most important activities. A “Stop Doing” list is as important as a “To Do” list. A “To Do” list is easy, you just keep adding to it and the more you have on it, the more important you may feel. But “Stop Doing” is more difficult because you have to give up some things."

Krissi Barr is the founder of Barr Corporate Success, a business consulting firm in Cincinnati. She is also the author of Plugged – How To Dig Out and Get The Right Things Done.

"With the exception of one or two days a year, I work out every single day. Fitting a workout into the work day reduces stress, keeps you healthy, and is great for getting “alone time” to work out business and personal problems. When someone asks for a non work-related meeting, see if they are up for doing the meeting while running or biking together. Work out at lunchtime and then eat at your desk."

Mike Cassidy is the CEO of travel and tour site Ruba. He has also been the co-founder and CEO of Xfire (a company that helps gamers play online with their friends), Direct Hit (an internet search engine), and Sylus Innovation (which produced a computer telephony software).

"For me, a big part of productivity is being agile. I like to leave a lot of blocks in my day open. On an average day, I'm only 50 percent scheduled, though occasionally it gets as high as 80 percent. That's imperative, because often something comes up out of nowhere. Recently, for example, an important new partner came to the office and unexpectedly brought the CEO. The team came to me and said, "Oh, my God; their CEO came. Do you have a window this afternoon?" I had a window. And at the end of the hour the CEO and I spent together, we'd identified new markets and positioned the company to be a global as well as domestic partner. If I have a free block and nothing presents itself, I catch up on industry reports, self-education, and big-picture thinking. In a packed schedule, those things can get neglected. They shouldn't be."

Scott Lang is CEO of Silver Spring Networks, a developer of smart energy grids, based in Redwood City, California.

"Don't multitask. Multitasking is something we all do these days. The problem is our brains just aren’t cut out for it. When you multitask, you’re interfering with your brain’s ability to perform at max-capacity. Yes, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can fold laundry while talking to a friend on the phone. Clowns can ride a unicycle while juggling brightly colored balls. These are role tasks that don’t demand a lot of brain power. But in most cases, multitasking=lesstasking. When you make those shifts from one context to another, you risk dropping things from your short-term memory. Do one thing at a time, minimize context shifts, maximize brain power!"

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Barbara Corcoran made her mark building one of New York’s largest real estate companies. Today, she is a panelist on the ABC program Shark Tank and runs a much smaller firm that works with the start-ups she chooses to invest in on that show.

"When scheduling travel and social activities, I like to communicate plans through e-mail to both family and colleagues to keep an easy record of correspondence rather than relying on a possibly hurried conversation."

Karl Hoagland is the founder of Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants, in Larkspur, California. It recorded $20 million in sales in 2009.

"A lot of productivity is capturing ideas. I use a wiki—it’s more valuable than e-mail for running a company—and I have a page for every person with whom I interact frequently."

Garrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon, a Web service in San Francisco that helps users find relevant content based on others’ recommendations.

"I get almost as much done outside normal office hours as during them. I’ll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. If I’m trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, I’ll come in on the weekend, when there’s less going on, and spend a day focusing on it. I read technology manuals and watch video tutorials late at night. During start-up, I think you have the choice of being productive or having a social life, and I’ve choosen being productive."

Seth Priebatsch (center) is CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games.

"If I think something is going to take me an hour, I give myself 40 minutes. By shrinking your mental deadlines, you work faster and with greater focus. I also schedule time every week on my calendar for quiet, concentrated PowerTime where I only work on my most important activities. A “Stop Doing” list is as important as a “To Do” list. A “To Do” list is easy, you just keep adding to it and the more you have on it, the more important you may feel. But “Stop Doing” is more difficult because you have to give up some things."

Krissi Barr is the founder of Barr Corporate Success, a business consulting firm in Cincinnati. She is also the author of Plugged – How To Dig Out and Get The Right Things Done.

"With the exception of one or two days a year, I work out every single day. Fitting a workout into the work day reduces stress, keeps you healthy, and is great for getting “alone time” to work out business and personal problems. When someone asks for a non work-related meeting, see if they are up for doing the meeting while running or biking together. Work out at lunchtime and then eat at your desk."

Mike Cassidy is the CEO of travel and tour site Ruba. He has also been the co-founder and CEO of Xfire (a company that helps gamers play online with their friends), Direct Hit (an internet search engine), and Sylus Innovation (which produced a computer telephony software).

"For me, a big part of productivity is being agile. I like to leave a lot of blocks in my day open. On an average day, I'm only 50 percent scheduled, though occasionally it gets as high as 80 percent. That's imperative, because often something comes up out of nowhere. Recently, for example, an important new partner came to the office and unexpectedly brought the CEO. The team came to me and said, "Oh, my God; their CEO came. Do you have a window this afternoon?" I had a window. And at the end of the hour the CEO and I spent together, we'd identified new markets and positioned the company to be a global as well as domestic partner. If I have a free block and nothing presents itself, I catch up on industry reports, self-education, and big-picture thinking. In a packed schedule, those things can get neglected. They shouldn't be."

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Barbara Corcoran made her mark building one of New York’s largest real estate companies. Today, she is a panelist on the ABC program Shark Tank and runs a much smaller firm that works with the start-ups she chooses to invest in on that show.

"When scheduling travel and social activities, I like to communicate plans through e-mail to both family and colleagues to keep an easy record of correspondence rather than relying on a possibly hurried conversation."

Karl Hoagland is the founder of Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants, in Larkspur, California. It recorded $20 million in sales in 2009.

"A lot of productivity is capturing ideas. I use a wiki—it’s more valuable than e-mail for running a company—and I have a page for every person with whom I interact frequently."

Garrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon, a Web service in San Francisco that helps users find relevant content based on others’ recommendations.

"I get almost as much done outside normal office hours as during them. I’ll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. If I’m trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, I’ll come in on the weekend, when there’s less going on, and spend a day focusing on it. I read technology manuals and watch video tutorials late at night. During start-up, I think you have the choice of being productive or having a social life, and I’ve choosen being productive."

Seth Priebatsch (center) is CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games.

"If I think something is going to take me an hour, I give myself 40 minutes. By shrinking your mental deadlines, you work faster and with greater focus. I also schedule time every week on my calendar for quiet, concentrated PowerTime where I only work on my most important activities. A “Stop Doing” list is as important as a “To Do” list. A “To Do” list is easy, you just keep adding to it and the more you have on it, the more important you may feel. But “Stop Doing” is more difficult because you have to give up some things."

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Barbara Corcoran made her mark building one of New York’s largest real estate companies. Today, she is a panelist on the ABC program Shark Tank and runs a much smaller firm that works with the start-ups she chooses to invest in on that show.

"When scheduling travel and social activities, I like to communicate plans through e-mail to both family and colleagues to keep an easy record of correspondence rather than relying on a possibly hurried conversation."

Karl Hoagland is the founder of Larkspur Hotels and Restaurants, in Larkspur, California. It recorded $20 million in sales in 2009.

"A lot of productivity is capturing ideas. I use a wiki—it’s more valuable than e-mail for running a company—and I have a page for every person with whom I interact frequently."

Garrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon, a Web service in San Francisco that helps users find relevant content based on others’ recommendations.

"I get almost as much done outside normal office hours as during them. I’ll interview people on Saturdays, late at night, early in the morning. If I’m trying to solve a particularly difficult problem, I’ll come in on the weekend, when there’s less going on, and spend a day focusing on it. I read technology manuals and watch video tutorials late at night. During start-up, I think you have the choice of being productive or having a social life, and I’ve choosen being productive."

Organize Your Daily Interruptions

Always Be Interviewing

Hire for Flexibility

Rank Items on Your To-Do List

Use E-mail to Document

Use a Wiki to Capture Ideas

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Hire for Flexibility

Rank Items on Your To-Do List

Use E-mail to Document

Use a Wiki to Capture Ideas

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Use E-mail to Document

Use a Wiki to Capture Ideas

Be Extra-Productive During Off-Hours

Shrink Your Mental Deadlines

Always Save Time to Exercise

Schedule Time to Focus on the Big Picture

Avoid Multitasking

Review Your Productivity at the End of the Day

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the CEO of HDNet. He has been launching, buying and selling companies for a quarter of a century.

"Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of the other 10 people in your office. Keep the floor plan open so people can talk to each other. As the company gets bigger, keep dividing it into smaller and smaller groups. Follow Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule: Project teams should be small enough to feed with two pizzas. At Hunch, we don't have meetings unless absolutely necessary. When I used to have meetings, though, this is how I would do it: There would be an agenda distributed before the meeting. Everybody would stand. At the beginning of the meeting, everyone would drink 16 ounces of water. We would discuss everything on the agenda, make all the decisions that needed to be made, and the meeting would be over when the first person had to go to the bathroom."

Caterina Fake is the co-founder of the photo-sharing site Flickr. Her new start-up is Hunch, a website in New York City that takes user input to make recommendations on thousands of subjects.

"Communication is key. I call the CEO or chairperson of every one of my major clients every day. I like the directness of phone conversations; you don’t miss things the way you do with e-mail. I also carry my cell phone around the building, and my employees do as well. We have a rule: I answer their calls and they answer my calls. Also, cut down on sleep. Why would you sleep when it’s time to live? Sleeping isn’t living. You sleep when you die. I get up at 3:30 every morning and I’m at the gym by 4. Then I ride 25 miles on my bike before breakfast. Being in shape is what gives me energy."

Jordan Zimmerman is the founder of Zimmerman Advertising, which has 22 offices and billings in excess of $2.6 billion.

"My executive assistant, Haley Carroll, e-mails me a daily memo, which I read after I go home every night. It's in four parts, and the first part is my next day's schedule. Then comes a list of questions that cropped up during the day -- maybe someone wants to know whether I have feedback on the new Hudson Yards Catering logo. She aggregates them so she doesn't have to interrupt me repeatedly during office hours. I'll respond to those right away. The third part of the e-mail is FYIs: information I don't have to act on but might like to know. Maybe my mother called to make a reservation for her neighbor next week at Blue Smoke. Or there might be a change in my schedule. Finally, there is a section of longer-term reminders. I promised to write a blurb for a friend's book. I want to plan a vacation, so I need to check on my kids' school schedules. We started the memos only last year, and I don't know how we managed without them. I care about the details. This way, I don't worry that I'm missing anything."

Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 New York city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern and Eleven Madison Park.

"I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. I carry a little notebook with the names of 35 or 40 people in the company, and every week I look at it to make sure I’m in touch with everyone. The top eight or 10 people I’m going to see automatically. But there are always 20 or 30 people who are up-and-comers or one or two levels down, and I wan them to know I’m paying attention. Once a quarter, I go through my list of contacts—a couple of thousand of them—to see if there’s anyone I should be reaching out to about a job. Intensive as all of this is, I ultimately save time, because I can delegate with confidence."

Kevin P. Ryan’s encore to DoubleClick—the ad-serving behemoth he sold for $1.1 billion to private equity firm Hellman&Friedman in 2005—is AlleyCorp, a variety pack of Internet start-ups he founded in New York City.

"Zipcar challenged us to think about how we could use a car on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis. I’d like to challenge business people to think about what they would do if they could have talent on demand. Hiring contractors is more cost-efficient than hiring people full-time and less time-consuming than doing it yourself because you can hire an expert for whatever task you need to accomplish."

Julie Ruvolo is co-founder and COO of Solvate, a New York City-based provider of offsite office assistants.

"Make the next day’s “to do” list before you leave the office. Rate each item A, B, or C based on its importance, and work on A items first. The productiveness of any meeting depends on the advance thought given the agenda, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You’ll never have a creative idea at your desk."

Barbara Corcoran made her mark building one of New York’s largest real estate companies. Today, she is a panelist on the ABC program Shark Tank and runs a much smaller firm that works with the start-ups she chooses to invest in on that show.

"When scheduling travel and social activities, I like to communicate plans through e-mail to both family and colleagues to keep an easy record of correspondence rather than relying on a possibly hurried conversation."

Skip Meetings

"Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go."

The new activity will focus on its affiliation with the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 team and its British drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.