July 2008, much like the months before it, was marked with more news of economic gloom. Keeping their hand on the pulse of the times, personal and career development gurus stayed relevant with timely advice on how to thrive amidst the downturn. Some stressed tips on how to excel at your work, while others showed the path to happiness.

Our Top Three Picks for the Week

As part of our endeavour to save you some precious time, we have selected three of the most interesting articles on the net. This month, we have also included a special study on the effects of interruptions on knowledge workers, which managers and employees alike might find interesting.

Time Magazine

Is Our Happiness Preordained?

If two major studies about happiness are right, then we have as much control over our personal happiness as we have over the colour of our eyes.

Research at the University of Edinburgh points to a genetic predisposition for happiness, attributing about 50% of the variation of happiness in individuals to genetically-determined traits like “being sociable, active, stable, hardworking, and conscientious.” The study came out of a personality survey of 973 pairs of twins (twins being more alike genetically to each other than any other two individuals).

In a second study, happiness seemed to be even more closely related to age. This study, done over 30 years on a sample of more than 2 million individuals of different ages, ethnicities, nationalities and income levels, showed that happiness follows a U-shaped curve, dipping lowest at age 44. This finding transcends all factors (income level, number of children, ethnicity and period of birth) that were considered, firmly indicating that happiness levels have more to do with age than any other circumstance.

All is not lost though for the genetically sad and irrevocably middle-aged. Genetics and age apparently make up only half of the story of happiness. To be happy, researchers prescribe mimicking personality traits such as friendliness and easy-goingness, as well as setting realistic goals and working toward them. In other words, “don’t worry, be happy.”

FastCompany.Com

Worker, Interrupted

An interview with Gloria Mark (Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California) delivers interesting findings from her study on the effects of interruption on knowledge workers.

A summary of her research:

• Activity Switch Rate: Workers switch activities at a rate of once every 3 minutes and 5 seconds due to interruptions.
• Time Taken to Return to Original Task: When a person is interrupted with activities that require them to switch to a completely different task or topic, it will take the person 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to their original task.
• Percentage of Interrupted Tasks Returned to on the Same Day: 82%.
• Constructive Interruptions: Not all interruptions are bad. It was found that interruptions that are on the same topic actually help workers stimulate thought about the topic at hand. Also, if the interruptions are short and do not require a large shift in cognitive resources, the impact on the task at hand is negligible.
• Related Interruptions: When interruptions are related to the current task at hand (for example, a phone call while making phone calls, planning another event while planning for a present one), task-switching happened every 10 minutes instead of every 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
• The Price and Benefits of Interruptions: Interruptions cause workers significantly higher levels of stress (using a NASA workload scale), frustration and unhappiness compared to those with no interruptions. Interruptions meant workers were less creative and not able to achieve a sense of flow while working. However, it was discovered that interrupted workers worked faster, with no significant differences in the number of errors made.

Professor Mark concludes that in order to optimise productivity, one has to schedule well, be disciplined, and limit web access and email checking.

Harvard Business Publishing

11 Habits of the Worst Boss I Ever Had

Often, we read guides that instruct us on how to be a better manager. In a hilarious take on the subject, David Silverman lists some of the worst things bosses do to their employees.
Here are three of our favourites:

1. Change your mind. Change it several times a day. When reviewing a report, be sure to make comments that run counter to previous ones. Leave the employees guessing. It keeps them alert.

2. Send emails at 2 am. On a Sunday. Mark them urgent.

3. Be careful not to get too wrapped up in your employee’s own goals. If you’re too supportive in helping them develop, they’ll leave you for another job. And that’s not good management.

Resources

These are our top July picks for the most interesting personal development articles on the web, but we invite you to browse our resource links for an extended list of articles on effectiveness. These will be published shortly and will give our readers quick access to the web’s best on everything from stress management to organising and personal productivity.

If you enjoyed the article "Best Picks for July ´08 (Online Publications) " - why don't you read more about the Whakate Way.