Tausi Insider

Writer Annie Diller called a schedule “a net for catching days.” In The Writing Life , she noted that what we do with each hour adds up to what we do with our lives: “A schedule defends from chaos and whim.” But the man who has given millions of people a rigorous system for organizing the chaos of their lives through his Getting Things Done approach, David Allen, recently noted that at some point you must be guided by instinct. “Every decision we make about what action to take at any point in time is an intuitive risk. I have 20 minutes before my next meeting – should I call Bob, work on chapter eight or go get Susan’s opinion on the new software?” he writes in his newsletter. Mr. Allen’s system revolves around lists. Many of us try to prioritize our tasks, perhaps coding them A, B or C or using the features of our to-do app to rank their importance. It seems rational, scientific in a way. But he reminds us those are inevitably simplistic rating systems and miss some important conte...

Apparently, they’re retiring. Using census data, we can approximate the ratio of workers to retirees in Canada and how it changes over time. This ratio has been shrinking more quickly since 2008, which is when baby boomers started to retire in large numbers. More than 1,000 Canadians are reaching age 65 every day, which explains the need for high levels of immigration. (function(root) []; root.ChartTool.push(id: "gc-" + data.id, data: data); var b = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]; if (!b.classList.contains("gc-charttool-init")) b.classList.add("gc-charttool-init"); var c = document.createElement("link"); var j = document.createElement("script"); c.href = "https://www.theglobeandmail.com/files/interactive/chart-tool/1.4.1/chart-tool.min.css?token=16"; c.rel = "stylesheet"; j.src = "https://www.theglobeandmail...

A family loads a TV into a pickup truck outside a Walmart on Black Friday in El Paso, Texas on Nov. 25. JUSTIN HAMEL /The New York Times News Service Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for Tausi Insider. There’s some head-scratching going on among retail experts this week as they try to make sense of the strong sales at U.S. stores on Black Friday and record-setting online sales on Cyber Monday. The recurring question: What inflation? Shoppers’ enthusiastic spending to kick off the holiday season has defied the gloomy mood set by a well-worn list of data that has weighed on the U.S. economy for some time. Inflation is at 40-year highs, with steep prices for gas, food and other staples, and rising interest rates are making everything from mortgages to car loans more expensive. Yet retail sales over the U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend topped US$9-billion, and Cyber Monday sales of more than US$11-billion set a new record. The National Retail Federation expects the ...

Instead of a to-do list, Toronto-based productivity consultant Ann Gomez says you need a MAP – a Master Action Plan to guide your day. It helps, in particular, to overcome a prime barrier to effectiveness: Too many priorities. We need to identify our core priorities and effectively manage all the other demands on our time that keep us from those priorities. Individually and collectively, we are struggling because, as she bluntly puts it, “prioritization is broken.” She says you can effectively manage as many as three core priorities in your professional life and up to three in your personal life. Try for more, and you will trip yourself up. When something new and important comes up, if you want to make it a core priority – even a project from your boss requiring a week’s effort – swap it with one existing priority until you have completed the new item. But you can’t concentrate solely on core priorities. Other things intrude. You also have, for example, supporting tasks that you can’...

Consultant and former New York Times columnist Adam Bryant argues every moment of your day falls into one of three categories: want, should or need. You essentially are making decisions on how to use each moment based, implicitly or explicitly, on completing an intention that begins “I want to …,” “I should …,” or “I need to ….” (A close cousin to the last one is: “I have to ….”) If you accept those buckets, he suggests you can use them to better organize your life. You can start by creating a pie chart of your life based on his categorization. “How much of your typical day, week or month falls into each of those three categories? How much of your job is spent doing the things you want to do – ideally creating that state of flow in which your skills and talents are well-matched to the task at hand – versus the things you just muscle through because you should do them or need to do them?” he asks in Strategy + business . There is no right mix. It can depend on the nature of your work ...

A unit of Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial Inc SLF-T has partnered with Hong Kong-based Dah Sing Bank in a deal valued at nearly C$260-million ($193-million), the companies said on Friday. Under terms of the partnership, Sun Life would pay to become the exclusive life insurance provider for Dah Sing Bank’s 570,000 retail customers, beginning July, the companies said. The deal will bring in new customers for Sun Life and help the insurer expand its customer base in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government had lifted COVID-19 restrictions and reopened its borders with China early this month, opening the lucrative market for insurance sales. Executives at the Canadian insurer told analysts in a post-earnings conference call last November that it experienced outflows in Asian markets in the third quarter, including Hong Kong, due to market volatility. Sun Life-Asia President Ingrid Johnson added at the time that the market in Hong Kong “was very encouraging with the emergence of sales.” ...