• Why time management may not be working for you
  People often use time management tactics to counteract impulses such as the desire to avoid unpleasant tasks or the need to feel busy, Howard Jacobson writes. People who don't understand these impulses or who are willing to confront them will almost always fail at time management. "Trying to build new habits on top of dysfunctional old ones works about as well as putting a new car body on top of a rusty old engine," Jacobson writes. Fast Company online (1/25)      

• Arianna Huffington's guide to failure
  Failure isn't the opposite of success; rather, it's a stepping-stone to better things, says new-media mogul Arianna Huffington. It's important to remember that when your company begins doing well, and to keep taking risks, Huffington says. "Now that Huffington Post is successful, we try not to let that stop us. We constantly iterate," she adds. Inc. online (free registration) (1/24)      

• 6 tips for an effective LinkedIn network
  Your LinkedIn network should be no more than 400 contacts and should include a diverse range of professionals, Eli Amdur writes. "Your network should remain an unbroken chain. It should be current. If you haven't been in contact with people in a few years, are they really in your network?" he writes. The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) (1/25)      

• Report: More people 65 and older remain in labor force
  A report from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that 16.1% of Americans 65 and older were in the labor force in 2010, up from 12.1% in 1990. Improved health and decreased financial security could be behind the change. The New York Times (tiered subscription model)/Economix blog (1/24)      

• Want to work for the CIA?
  Federal government employees in the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations provide tips in this story for how they got such jobs and how others can do the same. For example, an intelligence analyst suggests starting with government websites such as USAJobs.gov to find postings. TheDailyMuse.com (1/27)      

Position Title Company Name Location Entry Level Junior Executive Zerin Business Consulting, Inc. Washington, DC Sales and Marketing - Entry Level - Management Opportunity PAID TRAINING ECM Acquisitions, Inc. Greater New York City Area, NY Manager of Planning & Logistics, Strategic Initiatives The Culinary Institute of America - Greystone Campus St. Helena, CA Click here to view more job listings.

• Companies help their workers catch more Zs
  Too many workers are running on too little sleep, therefore many companies are now partnering with sleep experts to help their workers to get enough shut-eye. Companies such as Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble are installing melatonin-regulating lighting and testing other sleep-friendly strategies in a bid to boost overall productivity. "If we treated machinery like we treat the human body, there would be breakdowns all the time," notes sleep psychologist James Maas. The Wall Street Journal (1/23)      

Top five news stories selected by SmartBrief on Your Career readers in the past week.

• Quit your job and join TaskRabbit, entrepreneur suggests (VentureBeat)

• 5 career lessons from Monty Python (The Fast Track)

• Why your career may seem pointless (CareerRocketeer.com)

• Don't be duped by a dishonest interviewer (Brazen Careerist)

• Become a super-efficient worker that bosses will covet (Brazen Careerist)

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

• Rise of the haggis bootleggers
  Haggis -- the iconic Scottish delicacy dubbed the "great chieftain o' the pudding-race" -- is illegal in America, where regulators have banned the culinary use of sheep lungs, one of the dish's key ingredients. Some aficionados try to smuggle authentic haggis into the country, saying that lung-free versions simply aren't the same. "Without the sheep's lung it's not authentic. ... It lacks the lightness the lungs help create," one expat explains. BBC (1/23)      

There's much to be said for challenging fate instead of ducking behind it." --Diana Trilling, American literary critic and author       Have a favorite famous quote? Share it and we may publish it here!