“Hot Sauce” Applause

July 26, 2026Leave a comment

I’ve noticed a new pandemic sweeping the nation. Don’t worry, it is not necessary to break out those old facemasks from storage, nor hunt for a vaccine. This particular problem is one of energy, not biology. It is the trend towards “weak sauce” applause.

Watch carefully next time you attend an event or gala. When it is time to applaud a speaker, the results are often underwhelming. A “weak sauce” applause that has no flavor. Clapping that dies before the speaker has even taken the stage. It is one that reveals people are more interested in scrolling their phones or catching a quick snooze than acknowledging the person at the front of the room. “Weak sauce” applause lacks enthusiasm, turning any potential gourmet event into a bland fast-food combo.

At a recent Toastmasters Learning Institute, I gave a short keynote to raise awareness about the pandemic of “weak sauce” applause. To combat this worrying trend, I advocated for the audience to follow the lead of chef Emeril Lagasse and “kick it up a notch”. Let’s turn “weak sauce” into a “hot sauce” applause!

Why is this important? It has to do with the power of applause. We clap our hands for many reasons. Two big ones are to show respect for the speaker and to recognize the hard work it takes to stand at center stage. “Hot sauce” applause bring energy to a proceeding. It fires up both the crowd and the speaker. It adds spice to what could otherwise be a dreary dish.

Even more enticing, “hot sauce” applause makes any event more enjoyable. When fun enters the equation, learning becomes easier. Learning requires energy and “hot sauce” applause brings that in heaping dollops.

Therefore, I challenge you to put this into practice. The next time you are at an event, bring on the “hot sauce” applause. Clap loudly. Clap long. Give the speaker your full attention. Then watch the proceedings grow more exciting and more inviting as the fun kicks up several notches.

A dash of “hot sauce” applause brings excitement to any event.

Reframing: A Solution to Most Problems?

July 19, 2026Leave a comment

Do you know someone who is always in crisis?

Many people live their lives worrying about the load of problems that besiege them. They bemoan their fate and wonder why fate dealt them so many difficulties. Even the most optimistic people can fall victim to this mode of thinking. If you enter this trap is there a way out?

According to Darius Foroux, there is a simple, yet powerful way to escape pessimistic thinking. In an article on his website titled The Reframing Theory: The Solution to 95% of Your Problems, Foroux shares how changing the appearance of perceived problems in your mind can lead to better outcomes. This steams from an understanding of how labels are applied.

You have a label for everything in your life.

You are disciplined or undisciplined.
Successful or unsuccessful.
Healthy or unhealthy.
Happy or not.

These are the mental labels we use in our minds. They sound like facts, but they’re not.

They’re interpretations. And interpretations can be changed.

So how can interpretations be changed? The answer is to reframe the issue. Instead of accepting the first impression of a situation, see if it can be viewed from a different perspective. Foroux suggests the following exercise:

Positive thinking asks you to pretend bad things are good.

Reframing asks something different. It asks you to find the most accurate and useful interpretation of a situation.

Not the most flattering one. The most functional one.

There’s a difference between lying to yourself and choosing a better lens.

As an example, Foroux envisions someone who feels undisciplined and is beating themselves up over it.

Old frame: I lack willpower. Something is wrong with me.

New frame: My goals aren’t aligned with who I actually am, what I actually want, or what my life actually allows right now.

The old frame offers no solutions other than to try harder.

The new frame provides a way to analysis one’s actions and recommit to the goals set. It might even show that the reason no action has been taken is that the goals have no value. Therefore, resetting the goals with ones that inspire and excite the mind will lead to effortless action.

To learn more about how to apply reframing to your life, please read the rest of the article.

Process Now – Decide Later

July 13, 2026Leave a comment

There is a quiet tension in knowledge work. Throughout the day we are constantly getting new inputs, as emails, phone calls, and messages stack up. However, we also must spend time making decisions in order to move forward on our goals and projects. Focus too much on the first and we make little progress on important goals. Focus too much on the later and the stress of overflowing inboxes weighs heavy on our minds. Therefore, must we make a choice? Is one of these more important than the other?

In a post on his Substack page, GTD creator David Allen considered the apparent paradox that knowledge workers face between processing new input and making decisions on objectives. He ultimately finds they are not in conflict at all. That is because they occupy different spaces in workflow. To start with, Allen believes it is important to process new input when it first shows up.

When you put off this thinking for longer than a day (or two or three or more), the more mental effort it will take to reconstruct what that input was about and reduce or eliminate your backlog. Research on memory suggests that if something is more than seven days past, it’s extremely difficult to remember or recreate what happened, and what it’s about. Not a long time. but magnify that by as many unprocessed things you have. If you zero out your in-baskets daily, it’s not such a drain on your energy to get things clear.

Keep in mind that processing an item is not the same as making a final decision on it. While some two-minute rule items can be dispatched quickly, for more complicated projects there is an advantage to delaying a decision. In fact, letting it marinate until the deadline may be more productive in the long run.

There are times and situations in which it could be more productive to wait to engage with making a decision or acting on something until it would be critical if you don’t. This is particularly true when new information is likely to arrive that would change your call. …

On a more subtle and strategic level, it could mean waiting for the environment to shift before making a judgment call that would have lots of impact.

Allen summarizes this approach in a simple phrase: Clarify fast, decide patiently. Do this and the tension will dissolve as you work with a mind like water.

I invite you to read the full post to understand the relationship between processing and deciding.

Does a 100-Year-Old Productivity Tip Work in the Digital Age?

July 5, 2026Leave a comment

Productivity tips are everywhere. Yet, how many of them actually work and will they stand the test of time?

We tend to think that a focus on productivity is an Internet era obsession. However, people have been searching for better ways to do work since the rise of the information professional at the beginning of the 20th Century. As unlikely as it seems, is it possible that a tool from that time period is still useful in the age of AI?

On the Todoist website, editor Anna Sonnenberg recently shared the 100-year-old Ivy Lee Method. It is a technique named after its creator, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, back in 1918. The method is designed to concentrate focus every day on the most important tasks to accomplish through a rank order system. At its heart are four rules, which Sonnenberg describes:

1/ At the end of your day, identify six important tasks you need to do the next day. This number creates a constraint, forcing you to get clear on your priorities. It also limits you to a manageable number of tasks.

2/ Rank tasks by priority and do them in order. If you could only finish one task tomorrow, which would it be? Order your task list from most important to least important. Then, work through them in that order.

3/ Don’t move on until the task is complete. The key to this method is working on one task at a time until it’s finished. This approach helps you fully concentrate on what you’re doing and avoid leaving tasks unfinished.

4/ Move unfinished items to the next day’s list. Each evening, look at what didn’t get done and decide if it still matters. If it does, include it on tomorrow’s list. This daily reset prevents old tasks from piling up.

Why would this approach work today? Despite all the emails flying in, our digital reminders popping up, and AI agents set to serve, a knowledge worker must still decide where to direct their focus. With the distractions populating our workplace, the Ivy Lee Method is a way to keep attention on the selected tasks against the cacophony of digital noise. As Sonnenberg shares:

If you’re prone to distraction during the workday like I am, this method helps you hit the ground running in the morning and stay focused throughout the day. All you have to do is pick six tasks and work through them.

Just make sure you create your list the night before. Otherwise, you might get distracted by all the possibilities when you sit down to do the work.

To learn more about the Ivy Lee Method, and most importantly, tips on how to implement it in a digital environment, I invite you to read the rest of the article.

Doing More & Avoiding Burnout

June 29, 2026Leave a comment

Have you ever heard a manager say that we need to do more with less?

Many workplaces lack the luxury of abundant staff and large budgets. These are work environments where everyone pitches in on multiple fronts. Often this means people work longer hours, sacrificing evenings and weekends away from their families to get the work done. While this might be needed for significant deadlines, that level of pace is unsustainable. It quickly leads to burnout. Therefore, is there a way to avoid the overwork trap and still reach the organization’s goals?

Recently, consultant Irina Bilenko shared her thoughts on LinkedIn in an article titled, Doing More With Less Without Burning Out Your Team. She regularly talks with nonprofits struggling to get things done and at the risk of wearing themselves out. Her initial observation on the problem is a simple one.

The phrase “do more with less” is often repeated in the nonprofit sector. But I think it’s misleading. If people are already working at full capacity, asking them to simply do more isn’t a sustainable answer.

The answer is not working harder. The answer is making it easier to focus on what matters most.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

Ramming through with grit and putting in extra hours is actually highly inefficient and wasteful. Instead, Irina believes that stepping back to examine the organization’s workflow leads to better productivity in the long run.

What I discovered was that the problem wasn’t effort. The problem was the system.

Work was held up by unnecessary approvals. Decisions took too long. Information wasn’t available when people needed it. Teams were solving the same problems over and over. Meetings filled calendars without producing decisions.

When those barriers were removed, something interesting happened.

People didn’t need to work harder. They suddenly had more capacity.

Irina found that improving the system starts with removing unnecessary items. Eliminating low value tasks and pointless meetings relieved tension and led to more success on the individual and organizational levels. For example, getting rid of producing pointless reports and streamlining levels of approval saved hours of time. This in turn allowed employees to enjoy their evenings and weekends, confident in the knowledge that they were accomplishing their goals.

To learn more from Irina on how improving systems can generate better results, I invite you to read the rest of her article.

Why Young Professionals Say “No” to Leadership Roles

June 21, 2026Leave a comment

We have all heard the standard career advice: start at the bottom, work hard, and get promoted into leadership. Becoming a supervisor or manager has often been seen as an important step on the career path. However, what happens if a person decides that traveling the leadership route is not worth the stress and workload? Is there a way to make these positions more appealing?

In an online post titled, Why Library Workers Are Saying “No” to Leadership Roles, Choice360 contributor Alejandro Marquez shares reasons why some young library professionals choose to stay away from leadership roles. While his focus is on the library profession, many of the factors apply to other professional careers. Among the several workplace issues Marquez cites, one is the arrival fallacy.

The arrival fallacy is the mistaken assumption that a goal or outcome will allow an individual to achieve happiness. In an organization, bosses often promise their workers a reduction in workload or stress simply by hiring new people. Often, there is no reduction as other people leave, positions are frozen, or institutional priorities shift. Instead of a reduced workload, leaders often inherit a backlog of issues, and the initial optimism can quickly fade as they grapple with the same systemic challenges. The cycle of hiring new leaders with the expectation of change, only to see the same problems persist, creates a sense of disillusionment and fuels discontent.

Does this mean that critical leadership roles will go unfulfilled in the years to come? That does not have to be the future. Marquez suggests several ways that young professionals can be encouraged to view leadership roles in a positive light. A starting point is by ensuring that organizations have carefully considered the concepts of compensation and workload equity.

Leadership roles demand significant time, energy, and expertise. Compensation needs to reflect a workload that accurately represents increased responsibilities. Workload differentials—recognizing that leadership roles often extend beyond a role’s core duties—are essential and must be accounted for. Transparent workload assessments and the equitable distribution of responsibilities are tools that can help this process.

To learn more about the reasons why young library professionals are avoiding leadership roles along with ways to address their concerns, please read the rest of the article.

It’s Not About Project Management

May 31, 2026Leave a comment

Do you have challenges with project management?

For knowledge workers, projects are the key items that they work on day in and day out. Yet very few people have thought deeply about what constitutes a project and the best way to tackle them. This can create a vague sense that projects can be handled more efficiently and effectively, but it is not obvious where to start.

Thankfully, David Allen of GTD fame has spent his career thinking deeply about how we actually work and the ways to do it better. In a recent blog post titled, You don’t have a project management problem (you have this instead)…and why it’s such a squishy area, he explores the idea that most people don’t have a clear understanding of their projects.

I was often asked by line managers and training people whether I had a good “project management” seminar for their people. My first response is, “what exactly do you mean by ‘project management’?” Very few have an immediately good answer. They’ve often just heard it as a need from their reports or their constituents. “Do you have people who need to know how to lay out a GANTT chart or detailed critical path for complex projects like constructing a building or implementing a new corporate information system? Or do you have people who feel overwhelmed with the sheer load of things to do, many of which can’t be finished in a single action step?” Usually, it’s some combination of the two, but mostly it’s the latter.

Allen has a very clear definition of a project. It is anything that requires more than one action to complete. These means that most workers have anywhere from 20-50 projects on their plate at a given time. Also, he believes stress related to projects does not arise from the tactics of doing them, but instead the overwhelm of all the potential tasks to do. Therefore, Allen sees two problems to solve. The first is that organizational approaches to project management are either too complex for the project or not encompassing enough. As he states in the piece:

Problem #1 – I’ve never seen any two of those projects that needed the same amount of planning or detailing of steps to get them under control. It ranges from three bullet points on the back of an envelope in a coffee shop (usually your most productive thinking) to days of intensive planning with a dozen people, pages of outlined steps, critical path, the works. So, most single “project management” model will either under- or over-plan most of your projects. There’s no one-size-fits-all.

To learn about the second problem and his overall conclusions on the topic, please read the rest of his post.

Shelf Promotion – Branding for Librarians

May 10, 20262 Comments

Do you have a personal brand?

You can be forgiven for believing that branding is the sole domain of businesses selling a wonder product or influencers marketing themselves in the quest to obtain millions of followers. However, personal branding is not restricted to large companies or individuals with lofty online dreams. Developing a personal brand is a practical approach that any professional can take to advance their career and expand their network.

This week at the Florida Library Association conference, I am presenting a breakout session titled, Shelf-Promotion: Crafting Your Brand in the Digital Age. The session will outline a non-influencer approach to developing a personal brand. Below is the description in the conference agenda.

Building a brand is not just for influencers. Professionals of all types benefit from creating an engaging online presence to drive their career. This interactive workshop provides practical tools and a personalized action plan to confidently build an authentic, effective brand while maintaining professional boundaries. Presented by the Efficient Librarian.

Laptop displaying Alex Chen creative director branding alongside matching notebook, business cards, mug, and stamp on wooden desk — Image created with WordPress AI.

In the breakout session, I’ll guide participants through a simple series of steps to create the foundation of their brand. One concept that will be shared is known as “Skill Stacking.” Here is how the website, Indeed, defines it.

Skill stacking is the concept that individuals can make themselves more valuable by gaining a wide range of skills instead of pursuing one skill or talent. Try pursuing complementary skills that may support each other and create a unique new set of skills. Doing so can offer a more realistic path to success and may provide more professional opportunities in various fields.

In my case with the Efficient Librarian, I have matched the skills of productivity, leadership, and librarianship together to forge my unique brand.

Go ahead and try this for yourself. Make a list of all the skills you are good at and enjoy doing. The trick is you don’t need to excel at any one of them. A high level of competency is good enough. Review the list and then match together skills that complement each other as the basis of your brand.

To learn more about creating a personal brand, please attend the Florida Library Association conference in Orlando this week. I hope to see you there.

A Power Public Speaking Tool

April 26, 2026Leave a comment

When we think about great public speakers, we often focus on what they say. From “I Have a Dream” to “Four Score and Seven Years Ago” history’s orators spent many hours searching for the perfect words to highlight their message. However, the content of speeches, while important, can be easily overshadowed by poor delivery. Speaking too quickly or packing too much information into a speech can deaden its appeal.

Paradoxically, the most powerful part of any speech may be the moments of deliberate silence. The strategic pause is an underutilized public speaking tool; despite the many useful roles it can serve for a speaker to connect with the audience.

In a recent article on the Enthusziastic website titled, The Power of Pauses in Public Speaking, the authors share why people need to add more moments of silence to their speeches. They open the article with this statement:

We rush through sentences trying to sound confident, sharp, and impressive. But in that speed, something important gets lost, the emotion behind the words. And in public speaking, that loss is costly. The truth is simple: the most impactful public speakers aren’t the ones who speak the fastest; they’re the ones who know exactly when to stop.

Strategic pauses can be used to accomplish many goals.

A pause allows important points to sink into the audience’s minds.

A pause slows down delivery to combat nerves that lead to fast speaking.

A pause signals authority, as it shows the speaker is confident enough to embrace silence as they command the stage.

Additionally, the authors share that a pause deepens emotional connection.

A pause is not just a technique, it is an emotional doorway. It is the moment when your message stops being noise and starts becoming truth. In public speaking, that shift is everything. Words might fill the air, but pauses fill the heart. When you pause at the right moment, you give your audience a gift, the space to feel. And that space is rare in today’s world. We live fast, we listen fast, we respond fast. But we feel slowly. Emotion needs room. It needs stillness. It needs silence.

Mastering the pause is an excellent way to improve public speaking skills. To learn more about the power of pause and the many ways to deploy it, please read the rest of the article on the Enthusziastic website.

Efficient Librarian

Exploring the Intersection of Efficiency and Librarianship

Category: Success Thinking