Let me explain what I mean by that. Many of us are knowledge workers—that is, we use our brains to solve problems for a living. Doing good knowledge work requires deep concentration, which requires unbroken chunks of time—at least an hour, for most people. You don’t write a symphony five minutes at a time. So far, so good, right? Here’s the problem: unbroken chunks of time have become scarce. Emails, texts, Slack messages, and a dozen other forms of incoming communication nudge us incessantly.

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. — Carl W. Buehner I recently traveled for work and stayed at a fancy-pants hotel. I don’t know what kind of hotel you usually stay in, but I frequent establishments with continental breakfasts and self-serve waffle makers. This hotel did not have a self-serve waffle maker. It had old-school doormen, mahogany paneling, and marble floors.

How do you build a good career? A lot of ink has been spilled on this subject by people far smarter than I, but when it comes to rules of thumb, I don’t think we can do much better than this idea from Peter Drucker: The question is not, “How to be successful?” The question is, “How to be useful?” Being useful is hard, because it involves putting our ego aside and doing what the situation asks instead of asking the situation to meet our needs and preferences.

In commercial aviation, accidents are very rare. Flying is, by far, the safest way to travel. But when a jetliner does crash, mechanical problems are usually not the culprit—human error is to blame. And not just one error, either. There’s a concept in aviation called an error chain: a sequence of minor mistakes leading to a disaster. Not one big mistake, not two bad calls in a row, but several successive errors in judgment or execution.

By the mile it's a trial, but by the inch it's a cinch. — Zig Ziglar As we move through life, most of us develop a collection of personal productivity hacks—little tricks that help us get things done, even when we don’t feel like being productive. Everyone’s list is different, but here are two tactics that should be in everyone’s back pocket: Break projects down. Focus on the task at hand.