Becoming and staying productive isn't about hard-to-follow programs or logging your every move in an app. It's about self-care. Here are daily to-dos to get you started. (Fast Company)

Visit http://www.fastcompany.com/3003586/6-simple-rituals-reach-your-potential-every-day to view the full article online.

 

Between 2007 and 2010, the median net worth of U.S. households fell by 47 percent, reaching its lowest level in more than forty years, adjusted for inflation. In other words, middle class wealth virtually evaporated in this country. A good chunk of the population got sucked through a financial wormhole back to the sixties. (The Atlantic)

Visit http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/the-recessions-toll-how-middle-class-wealth-collapsed-to-a-40-year-low/265743/ to view the full article online.

 

Game-changing trends! Hot markets! Daring predictions! Step right up to get a preview of what the New Year will bring to business. (Inc.)

Visit http://www.inc.com/ss/adam-bluestein/make-money-2013-7-trends-to-watch#0 to view the full article online.

 

November's jobs report is probably not going to be good. There will likely be a lot of noise in the data tied to Superstorm Sandy and the closing of Twinkie-maker Hostess Brands. But some economists see hope for better jobs gains ahead, despite fiscal cliff fears. Why? In a nutshell, those of us who have jobs are reaching our breaking point. That can't continue for much longer. (CNN/Money)

Visit http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2012/12/06/jobs-productivity/?iid=Lead to view the full article online.

 

It was the end of the year and Diana Tigani needed to fill several jobs for three new offices that were opening in South Florida. At any other time, the area director for Regus – a company based in Luxembourg that provides virtual offices for home-based businesses – might have received more than 50 résumés from online job ads.

Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324469304578143503562091508.html to view the full article online.

 

It's not always a candidate's fault when a job interview goes south. Hiring managers can commit a litany of sins, such as interrupting interviews to answer phone calls, failing to take notes, acting bored or distracted, bad-mouthing their own companies, bullying applicants, or asking "gotcha" questions for no reason at all, say human-resources consultants. (Wall Street Journal)

Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323717004578159231367292810.html to view the full article online.

 

Racial and gender stereotypes have profound consequences in almost every sector of public life, from job interviews and housing to police stops and prison terms. However, only a few studies have examined whether these different categories overlap in their stereotypes. A new study on the connections between race and gender – a phenomenon called gendered race – reveals unexpected ways in which stereotypes affect our personal and professional decisions. (PR Newswire)

Visit http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/03/5027406/gender-and-race-how-overlapping.html to view the full article online.

 

U.S. regulators are cracking down on Chinese companies for issuing misleading financial reports. But the feds have been stymied so far by a wall of resistance to U.S. accounting rules – and not just from the companies. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)

Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-04/u-dot-s-dot-china-in-cold-war-over-accounting-rules#r=hp-ls to view the full article online.

 

Your phone rings. Someone's trying to sell you financial services. The person you're speaking to is likely to be sitting in a massive room with hundreds of other people. And if you're in an English-speaking country, the chances are they will have an Indian accent. India may be the world leader in call centers but in South Africa the government is hoping to grow its own industry, so the person calling you in the future could be a South African. (CNN)

Visit http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/06/business/call-centers-south-africa/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2 to view the full article online.

 

Over the past decade or so it’s become accepted in the business education world that some of the best value that MBA students get from a year or two in the classroom comes not from their chosen school’s academics but from their peers. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)

Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-03/the-art-of-the-mba#r=nav-fs to view the full article online.

 

Fifty MBAs at the Wharton School will receive the first loans made by a new player in the alumni-sourced lending market. CommonBond, a startup founded by a Wharton alum, said this week it will lend $2.5 million for students to pay for the coming semester. (Businessweek)

Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-05/wharton-mbas-tap-into-alumni-sourced-student-loans#r=nav-fs to view the full article online.

 

When Mary Meeker speaks, the Valley listens. This week, Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (the venture firm founded in 1972 that's invested in pretty much every major tech company of the last quarter century) unveiled her 88-page analysis of Web, mobile, technology, and societal trends. (Inc.)

Visit http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/mary-meeker-5-bold-predictions-from-a-silicon-valley-luminary.html to view the full article online.

 

Enterprise use of cloud services continues to grow - albeit from a small base - and in 2013 analyst house Forrester says many companies will begin deployment of private clouds. As spending on cloud services and platforms picks up, the way businesses use such services will also evolve. Forrester has put together 10 ways its analysts expect attitudes surrounding cloud to change next year. (ZDNet)

Visit http://www.zdnet.com/10-ways-cloud-computing-will-change-in-2013-7000008364/ to view the full article online.

 

People talk a lot about supporting local businesses over big corporate stores, but few put their money where their mouth to the level that Maggie Anderson did. She spent a full year completely living off Black businesses to see if it could be done. Along her journey, which she called The Empowerment Experiment, Anderson encountered a community that refused to support its own, an economy that had Black businesses wholly disenfranchised, and virulent criticism from those outside the Black community who called her a racist. She wrote about her experience in a book called Our Black Year. (Color Magazine)

Visit http://www.colormagazineusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=711:maggie-anderson-author-of-our-black-year&catid=64:lifestyle to view the full article online.

 

Ellen Burts-Cooper, senior managing partner of personal and professional development training firm Improve Consulting and Training Group LLC, makes giving back a priority for her staff. Employees are required to contribute to the community in at least one of the following three ways: a minimum of four volunteer hours; a financial or material donation; or use of their skills to help, such as offering project assistance. (Smart Business)

Visit http://www.sbnonline.com/2012/12/2012-pillar-ellen-burts-cooper-senior-managing-partner-improve-consulting-and-training-group-llc/?full=1 to view the full article online.

 

Most Americans paid less in taxes in 2010 than people with the same inflation-adjusted incomes paid in 1980, because of cuts in federal income taxes. At lower income levels, however, much of the savings was offset by increases in federal payroll taxes, state sales taxes and local property taxes. About half of households making less than $25,000 saved nothing at all. (The New York Times)

Visit http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/30/us/tax-burden.html?ref=us to view the full article online.

 

The typical American family spends half its income on housing and transportation. That sounds like a sad stat. But it sits atop a happy trend. Food and clothes consumed 60% of consumer spending in 1900, but as we found more efficient ways to make burgers and socks, that number fell all the way to 17% in 2003. As a result, in most major cities, we spend the majority of our income on planes, trains, automobiles, and dwellings. (The Atlantic)

Visit http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/middle-class-miami-spends-72-of-its-income-on-housing-and-transportation/265738/ to view the full article online.

 

If you're one of the millions of people already on the prowl for that hot must-have gift this holiday season, you might have already noticed something new at your favorite big box store and we're not talking about stocking stuffers. More and more of the big box stores are also offering financial products, like home mortgages or small business loans, along with the flat-screen TVs, lumber and paper towels. (NPR)

Visit http://www.npr.org/2012/11/27/165991721/is-it-wise-to-bank-at-big-box-retailers to view the full article online.

 

Many residential real estate markets finally seem to be getting better. In fact, some are getting a lot better. That means there are more people with hugely appreciated homes. If you fit into this category, please don’t sell without considering the heavy tax hit that would result. (MarketWatch)

Visit http://www.marketwatch.com/story/time-to-sell-that-highly-appreciated-home-2012-12-05 to view the full article online.

 

Finally some good news for long-haul business fliers: Airlines are putting in more sleeper seats that fold all the way flat. The bad news? Not all of them are as far along as they'd like passengers to think. (Wall Street Journal)

Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324640104578161162489904892.html to view the full article online.

 

This is my first holiday season with my current employer – I'm in my first "real" job after college – so I hope this isn't a dumb question, but what is generally expected in big companies regarding gifts to bosses and coworkers? I interned all last year at a small family-owned firm where everyone knew everyone else really well, and we all had fun giving each other little Christmas and Hanukkah presents. But everything at my new job is much more formal, and I don't want to get this wrong. (Fortune)

Visit http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/06/holiday-gifts-etiquette-work/ to view the full article online.

 

Top advertising and media executives are expressing concern but not alarm – at least, not yet – about the potential effects that a fiscal crisis in the United States could have on their industries in 2013. (The New York Times)

Visit http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/business/media/stalled-budget-talks-cast-long-shadow.html to view the full article online.

 

Democrats say it so often that it has become something of a mantra: there will be no deal to resolve America’s fiscal mess unless Republicans agree to higher tax rates on the richest Americans. But they seldom talk about their side of that bargain: the cost-cutting reforms to such entitlements as Medicare, the government’s health-care scheme for the old, and Social Security, its pension scheme, that they are expected to offer in return. As more and more Republicans grudgingly accept the prospect of higher taxes, the Democrats will soon have to decide what they can stomach on entitlement reform. (The Economist)

Visit http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/12/democrats-and-fiscal-cliff to view the full article online.

 

The times, they are a-changing – constantly. Luckily, the rulebook for leading in the midst of unpredictable change remains constant. Follow these 10 steps for great leadership no matter what happens. (Fast Company)

Visit http://www.fastcompany.com/3003656/how-lead-turbulent-times to view the full article online.

 

For many decades, newspapers were big; printed on the so-called broadsheet format. However, it was not cheaper to print on such large sheets of paper – that was not the reason for their exorbitant size – in fact, it was more expensive, in comparison to the so-called tabloid size. So why did newspaper companies insist on printing the news on such impractical, large sheets of paper? Why not print it on smaller paper? Newspaper companies, en masse, assumed that "customers would not want it;" "quality newspapers are broadsheet." (Harvard Business Review)

Visit http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/12/which_best_practice_is_ruining.html to view the full article online.

 

When two carriers combine their operations, experts say the number of complaints takes off. This assessment doesn't bode well for fliers given the latest industry news: American Airlines and US Airways are reportedly weighing a possible merger, while The Wall Street Journal reports that Delta Airlines is in talks to buy a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic from Singapore Airlines. (SmartMoney)

Visit http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/travel/best-airlines-for-5-kinds-of-flights-1354656615641/?link=SM_hp_ls1e to view the full article online.

 

We’ve all been there, standing in the aisle of a store, spending way too much time weighing the small differences between two similar products. Will the more expensive sleeping bag really perform better? When it comes to noise-canceling headphones, is $450 too much, too little, or just right? (MarketWatch)

Visit http://www.marketwatch.com/story/worth-it-or-not-a-gift-guide-2012-12-05?dist=beforebell to view the full article online.