The Top Tips Blog

My youngest daughter was chatting about her friends' parents and we were enjoying her character descriptions.

We actually know these people and are friends with them in our own right. We already ...

It’s actually Wednesday as I write. The thing is I’m not meant to be writing this week’s Top Tips right now. There are other pressing matters I should be attending to.

But I’m ignoring all of them an...

Let me take you for a ride.

Picture this: a journey from Redhill in Surrey on a busy Friday afternoon up to York. Then up early on Saturday morning and over the Pennines to Manchester for my daughter...

Last week I wrote off the cuff on Wednesday, chose an image of a doggy style greeting and scheduled the post for 5am Friday. 

Usually I check it a couple of times with a day in between each quick pro...

A few weeks ago we looked at ways to reduce friction in order to make things happen.

I broke down the various elements of my trip to Prague so that the work of sorting flights, booking accommodation,...

Back in 2004, Rufus Wainwright released his third album, Want One. It’s a grandiose affair, obscenely lush and theatrical with an incredible assortment of ideas.

Pretty Things

Gentle yearning pia...

I’m sure you’ve heard about the Marshmallow Test. Back in 1972 a curious Stanford psychologist (they’re always from Stanford) called Walter Mischel ran an intriguing experiment. 

It was a very simple...

How do you prefer to get your message across?

There’s a section in a training day on communication that I deliver where we explore the different channels available to us and why we might choose one o...

Like a lot of people these days I’m in a few different online collectives. A couple of my memberships are to do with work like Time Management, Wellbeing and a few tech groups.

I’m also in a few loca...

I’ve been thinking about building resilience a lot recently. Different people define it in different ways but basically resilience is the ability to get back up again and again, no matter how many tim...

Last week I gave a talk about Time Management to an audience of business owners. Specifically it was about the importance of prioritising effectively.

When I do a short presentation like this there a...

This week's email is longer than usual so buckle up. And please excuse me for a moment or two while I begin by reminiscing about the best job I’ve ever had.

In spring 1996 I completed a Teaching Engl...