From Cover Letter Killers To Practicing Patience: This Week’s Top Leadership Stories

This week we learned which cover letters hiring managers weed out first, how to make better use of those idle moments spent on our smartphones, and what it takes to be patient for longer.

These are the stories you loved in Leadership for the week of October 3:

1. I Review Hundreds Of Cover Letters—Here’s What I Instantly Reject

The days of the cover letter may ultimately be numbered, but they’re still widely used to screen candidates. These are some of the most common immediate disqualifiers, according to one experienced hiring manager.

2. Got 15 Spare Minutes? Here’s How To Make It Count

Sometimes 10 or 15 minutes is all the time you’ve got to think about the handful of tasks you won’t be able to get to as you hop from one meeting to the next. So instead of using those short intervals to make a hurried, jumbled mental list—or just giving up and scrolling Instagram—try this.

3. How To Train Your Brain To Be More Patient

Patience may be a virtue, but it’s one we’re hardwired to resist much of the time. That’s thanks to two competing mental systems, one psychologist explained this week, that work in tandem to motivate you to pursue certain goals over others. Impatience is a byproduct of that dynamic, but there may be a few simple ways to hack it.

4. 3 Ways I Had To Adapt My Management Style For An Open Office

When this exec moved his company to an open office, he realized it wasn’t just his team that had to adapt their work habits. His management approach needed to evolve, too. This week he shared some of the growing pains he hadn’t expected, and what it took to get past them.

5. How To Trick Your Brain To Slow Down Time

Our perception of the passage of time is anything but stable—sometimes it moves too fast for our liking, sometimes way too slowly. Here’s a look at the latest research on two key variables that play the biggest roles in determining the speed at which the minutes, hours, and days seem to tick by.