The right technology and strategies can help optimize productivity, with techniques including setting reminders throughout the workday and scheduling time for tasks that require deep focus. "If your biggest obstacle is inefficiency -- you don't work quickly enough, or you make poor use of your time -- tech can help you set up a plan for your day and plow through small tasks much more effectively," writes technology researcher Alexandra Samuel.

Though many major US-based companies have taken college degrees off their required qualifications list on job postings, those companies aren't following through with hiring workers without degrees, according to a new report. About 60% of the US workforce does not have college degrees, and this report looks at which companies are still hiring the same people as before.

Obsessing over worst-case scenarios will only hold you back in your entrepreneurial pursuit, writes speaker and author Jeff Haden. To avoid this, write down everything that you're afraid of, the benefits of doing those things, as well as the costs of not doing them, Haden writes.

Some interviewers are including "big talk" as well as "small talk" in a way to spark connection, but be careful not to overshare your personal life, says Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and author of "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do." "While many candidates simply regurgitate canned answers and information straight from their resume, someone who can speak more openly is likely to spark curiosity," Morin says.

Older workers who get laid off often get stuck in the overqualified applicant pile, even though they are vying for a job they are fine taking, and this creates a confounding cycle of never getting to tell their story, says Ofer Sharone, sociology professor and author of "The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed." Sharone suggests older job seekers reach out to a career coach and expand their support group to include more networking opportunities.

Leaders can improve at giving constructive feedback to their direct reports by practicing, writes Lisa Kohn, who notes the feedback should be specific, timely, supportive, about behavior (not the leader's opinion) and invite a response. "By sharing supportive, positive feedback you allow others to feel good about themselves and what they're doing, and to get even better at it," Kohn writes.

For reasons that are difficult to comprehend, an effort was made to remove the booksellers that line the River Seine when the Olympics come to Paris this summer. That effort failed and the booksellers will be in place during the Games.