There are people who literally cannot start a project until the deadline is four hours away, even if it's a big one. And those people have a serious problem. My recommendation is set up mini-deadlines. You might say, 'Okay, here's my deadline after three days for this and there's another deadline for that and then a third deadline.

There are people who literally cannot start a project until the deadline is four hours away, even if it's a big one. And those people have a serious problem. My recommendation is set up mini-deadlines. You might say, 'Okay, here's my deadline after three days for this and there's another deadline for that and then a third deadline.

Routinize the routine. The things that aren't important to you, whether it's breakfast or your commute, try to do them with the least energy possible so that leaves you with more energy for other things.

Wall Street is at best ambivalent. The size of the accounts is nothing big. How many Wall Street firms do you know that are running after people with $5,000 accounts?

America is the only major country that tries to ascertain who was the first applicant to invent the product or procedure. This may seem fair, but long proceedings to determine precisely when each party conceived an idea result mostly in keeping innovations from hitting the market.

You need to agree with your boss about what you need to get done that week, what are the metrics of success. Sometimes you need more hours, sometimes you need fewer hours.

I am a great believer in the OHIO principle: Only handle it once. When you read an e-mail, decide whether or not to reply to it, and, if you need to reply, do so right then and there. I have found that about 80 percent of all e-mails, whether internal or external, do not require a response.