Or rather, let me show you the power of a story.

And all through the lens of a search engine.

My vote for the best ad of the Superbowl.

One of the giants in the self-development world, Leo Babauta. His blog Zen Habits is read by over 150,000 people, and with good reason. It’s practical, wise and committed to helping people create a better life for themselves through simple productivity. He’s also the author of The Power of Less, a best-selling book which helps declutter your life on every possible level.

I’m thrilled to say Leo has  contributed a piece to my new book,  Do More Great Work.

In this interview Leo and I talk about:

• How he balanced two jobs (and a family with six children) to launch Zen Habits
• Leo’s core planning tool – and it’s about having fun
• Why starting small is the most powerful way for getting big
• The secret to leaving behind a bad habit and taking up a more positive, new one.

You can follow Leo on Twitter at @zenhabits and read his work on his blog.

Listen to my interview with Leo Babauta

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!”
~ Maya Angelou

One of the great blessings of writing Do More Great Work was inviting some people I admire greatly to contribute to the book. Inviting them, and being accepted.

This coming week I feature Great Work interviews with some of the contributors to Do More Great Work.

Seth Godin, Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity, Michael Port of the Think Big Revolution, Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist and HR guru Dave Ulrich are all people who’ve written brilliant pieces for the book and have also sat down to discuss Great Work with me. I’m delighted to acknowledge them here for their brains, their generosity and their support.

So who are you heroes? Tell me one or two or three – let me know in the comments.

And what have you done to reach out and say Hello? Or thank you? Or Hurrah!?

“Do more Great Work!” I say, full of vim and vigor and the wide-eyed enthusiasm of someone with a book about to be published.

“Yeah yeah,” you say. “Don’t you know how busy I am, how many emails I have to get through, how many meetings I have to attend?”

Well yes, I do. Or at least, I can guess. I saw a recent report that said that in Intel people spend an average of 20 hours a week ON EMAIL ALONE!

Crazy.

So if you’re looking for something practical tips, here we go. One page, seven tactics.

(It’s the press release from my publisher, so if you want to forward it on to a powerful journalist who wants to feature me, so much the better.)

Oh – I’d offer up one twist on #1. Define just one thing that you really  will do. And have the other two as gravy, bonus tasks that if you get to them you’ll be happy and if you don’t you won’t beat yourself up about it.

[OK - I tried long and hard to insert the pdf, and failed dismally. Here's the press release in all its glory]

“Seven Ways to Stop the Busywork” from Michael Bungay Stanier,
author of Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork, and Start the Work that Matters

Contact: Oleg Lyubner; 212-614-7768; oleg@workman.com

1. Define three things

It’s not a measure of success to check off forty-seven “to-dos” in a day if you haven’t actually accomplished what matters most. Define the three high-impact actions you want to take each day, and list them as “all-day tasks” on your calendar so you remember what they are.

2. Know who matters

The brutal truth is that if everyone else is happy, then you’re likely not doing Great Work. Great Work involves making choices, so you need to be very clear about who you want to say “Yes” to—and who matters less. Define your A-list (three people) and your B-list (five people) of who matters. You can consider saying “No” (or at the very least a “slow yes”) to anyone not on these lists. As an added tip here—because it’s always tough to disappoint people—frame any feedback you might get as being professional not personal.

3. Say Yes . . . Slowly

It’s difficult to say “No” in most organizations—but until you know how to say “No” to some of your Good Work it will be difficult to say “Yes” to more Great Work. So master the art of saying “Yes” slowly. Rather than making it your default response, ask at least three questions before you make a decision.

4. Time your meetings

We all know that meetings can be an enormous waste of time and energy. Marketing guru Seth Godin famously doesn’t do meetings. But for those of us who have to, make how much time they’re taking obvious. Google projects a four-foot-high clock onto a wall in their meetings—and people know exactly how long they’ve got to make their point.

5. Do a McKinsey

The consulting firm McKinsey & Company are famous for weeding out the bottom 10 percent of performers in their organization every year. This “up or out” philosophy is harsh—but effective. Apply the same approach to your meetings. Figure out the most ineffective meetings you’re asked to attend—and stop attending them (Ask to be sent a list of action items instead).

6. Control the Blackberry

Our culture of relentless connectedness disrupts our focus and our ability to do Great Work. Find systems or structures to manage the relentless flow of e-mail—because answering 150 e-mails a day is no one’s definition of Great Work.

7. Change places

When you sit down at your desk at the start of the day and crank up your computer, you set your body and brain into Good Work mode: be productive and efficient. Great Work requires a different type of thinking. Find somewhere else to do your Great Work—another place in your office, an empty meeting room, the cafeteria, a coffee shop down the road. Changing the context will change the way you work.

My first job, when I finally stumbled out of university, was with a small creativity and innovation company. It was pretty fantastic – sort of a ‘Fast Company’ company before such a thing existed. And we truly felt that we were in the vanguard for making innovation and its attendant skill creativity important in organizations.

But vanguard? No, not really. Roger von Oech – now he was in the vanguard. He started his company Creative Think back in the mid 1970s and his book A Whack on the Side of the Head is a classic in the creativity field.

In this interview we talk about:

• The power of persistence, and some of the early struggles to get creativity seen as something that matters within organizations
• The importance of embedding creativity into the structures of your organization
• The role of the warrior in helping creativity flourish
• And a certain activity that can increase your ability to be creative (And David Rock agrees.)

You can follow Roger on Twitter at @RogerVonOech and on his website.

Listen to my interview with Roger von Oeck