There’s no easy way to say this, but I fired Jeff from our newsletter.

We all like Jeff, and I’ll let him make appearances from time to time, but I decided we needed a fresh perspective.  

So, I oversee the content, add great stuff, and ensure it’s up to my standards.

You’ll see some changes around here, please let me know what you think!

In today’s newsletter:

• Amazing Announcements, our blogs, and stuff coming your way.
• In Back to Business, we talk about why taking time away from business matters.
• And wrap up with the Community Corner – have something to add? Let me know!

Now, on to the good stuff.

Amazing Announcements

🧪 What are SMART Targets, and how to use them. There is a science to creating tasks! (Who knew?) You can read about it here.

⚙️ Part of building a team is fairly evaluating performance. Here’s how to set up your performance evaluation. Read more here.

Back to Business

Have you ever brought your laptop on vacation?

• One of the best things about working from home is being able to work from anywhere.

• Also, one of the worst things about working from home is being able to work from anywhere.

See the problem?

Without giving yourself the right boundaries, you’ll take your work with you everywhere. Even on vacation. Even during your kid’s graduation. Even when you should be resting in bed while recovering from COVID.

That’s why Carla’s second order of business after taking over the newsletter was giving the Start Grow Manage team a mandatory two-week vacation.

(Joe has the title CEO, but only because Carla allows him to).  

But actually, our summer break has other inspiration.

We were inspired last year by Team Forleo and took a company summer break, and we were so impressed with the results that we are doing it again.

But there is more to it than a break.  We also want to avoid a Ken Olson moment.  

He was the guy who infamously stated that there was no need for computers in homes. He Jeered at the young Bill Gates with his absurd notion of a computer in every home. 

But then Olsons Digital Equipment Corp went out of business, and Gates took over the world.  

And Gates kept Microsoft from growing stale by taking time off.

He’d lock himself in a cabin for two weeks with plenty to read and think about things. That is how he came up with Internet Explorer and other world domination plans.  

So we will shut down for two weeks to think about things. We’ll read, we’ll study, we’ll come up with new models for you.  

Find some time to do this for yourself, you will be glad you did (and you may stave off abject failure, just say’n).

Community Corner

⭐️ NJ Law Journal “Best of” Rankings One of our community members, Jennifer Gillman’s company Gillman Strategic Group was awarded New Jersey Law Journals’ Best Legal Recruiter three years in a row

Learn more about their mission of getting lawyers to enjoy practicing law again.

🖥 More Screens, More Fun Heather recently purchased an attachable portable monitor from SideTrak and has been loving it. So don’t underestimate the power of what a second (or third in my case) monitor can do for your productivity.