Happy@Work

I've been silent for quite a time being on a wonderful holiday in Spain (promise to post some photos later). But now I'm back to my drafts and applications... and there was a wonderful advice waiting for me at my favourite Happy@Work blog: Top 10 tips for productive, creative, fun writing.
Alex, the author of the blog, is writing his 'Happy at work' book. In fact, he is nearly done (spent just 20 days on it)! So I couldn't leave my fellow MBA applicants without his advice.

I love this blog and would recommend it to anyone who believes that 'work' is other than 'make tons of money and go'. Some random postings I'd share:

• Learn to say "No" to your customers
• The strongest force in business
• Jerks at work
• Why having world's highest taxes is a good thing

And for fun:

• Friday weirdness

Quote:

• Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. Always wear them one day after your boss does. (This is especially effective if your boss is
  a different gender than you are)
• Wear a hands free phone headset throughout once in a while drift off into an unrelated conversation, such as: ‘I don’t care if there are no dwarfs, just get the show done!’

• Test for MBAs: What's your negotiation style?

Have you read "Freakonomics"?

Even if you haven't, you've definitely heard about the authors idea - there was some buzz a while ago, blogsearch brings about 20,000 results - that legalization of aborts in seventies decreased crime rate in nineties.

Why?
Authors cite lots of convincing statistics, but I'd like to add my 2 pence.

My granny remembers the times when abortion was legalized in Russia. Death rate among young women and mothers dropped dramatically, she says.
You cannot stop that thing, legal it would be or not, but women suddenly could receive doctor service instead of being treated by some next-door healer.
So more kids had mothers, got better nursing and education, became good citizens, never went to prison and now phone their mothers every weekend. Of course you wouldn't be able to collect any trustworthy data for Russia at that time.

The book is very interesting, a must-read for everyone who likes to question "generally accepted practices". Articles from New York Times on their website and their blog are worth checking too.

UPD: Published in Russian in November 2006. Link to Ozon

Get things done!

As many of MBA hopefuls who sunbathe and barbequeue and calm themselves stating that tests are passed and rough drafts are written, I'm hypnotized with every article which has a sour "procrastination" word in its title.
This one - A Procratinator's Guide on Getting Things Done is worth checking out for methodology (non MBA related, however, but might be a useful read for interns). As for technology I would advise another tool: Backpackit.
I first read about it in theDivineMissN post and use it ever since to make wonderful to do lists. An example of which I've made below in 37 seconds :)

Worth checking out and has a lot more than that even in free version.