Laura Stack - The Productivity Pro, Time Management, Getting Things Done, How to Be More Productive

Business Productivity: The Productivity Minute Video #22 If you don’t have something to say, say nothing

Sometimes the most productive thing to do is nothing. If you don't have anything new to add to the conversation, whether it be on email or in a meeting, don't say anything at all. (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. http://www.theproductivitypro.com

Getting Things Done: The Productivity Minute #20: Is Organization Genetic or Environmental?

Are we born organized and productive, or are these learned traits? Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), discusses this question. (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

The Importance of Productivity During Down Times

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In the summer of 1900...

• The average life expectancy in the United States was 47.
• A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11, which was an incredible sum because the average American made .22 cents an hour, or about $400 per year.
• Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores.
• There were about 230 reported murders in the US annually.

Amazing what a century will change. Amazing what a few months will change. Growth ends, recession sets in, the stock market stops booming, and companies go bust. The recession is impacting our clients in various ways: we're hearing of layoffs, hiring freezes, reduced budgets, not rehiring for positions as people leave, go on maternity, etc.

Tough economic times are packing a one-two punch in the workplace.

First, everyone is forced to do more with less (POW!).

Second, you have to do it all while dealing with the nagging anxieties that come with an uncertain economy—threats of downsizing, bankruptcies, cost containment, you name it (POW, again!).

So how do we cope—as leaders and as productive employees?

To succeed and keep their doors open, companies must make more money but spend less money and create greater results with fewer resources. You could attempt to cut salaries, benefits, staff, costs, or the quality of your products—all poor options. A better choice? Increase employee productivity. If you have 10 people, and you can get them to improve their productivity by 10%, you just effectively added another staff person without increasing salary expense—a much more attractive response. To do this, your employees need your help.

First of all, get a grip on your personal negative feelings that result from your lack of control. You DO have control over your friends, your love relationships, and your career. You decide for yourself what’s right and what’s wrong, whether you should stay in this weekend or go out, whether to vote Democrat or Republican. You decide who to see, what to wear, what to eat.

However, you have VERY LITTLE control over the government, economic policy, the rise and fall of the stock market, Mother Nature, international events, and even your company direction. Changes can often disrupt your life and force you to change your plans. Often there is little you can do and yet you are overwhelmingly affected by it. Accepting what is means realizing you can’t control certain things and to stop trying. You can sit around and wonder, “Oh, my gosh, how is this going to affect me? What if I’m next to go? How will I pay the bills? I’m going to be a bag lady!” You stew and worry and literally make yourself sick.

These things will happen. They just will. You will get no warning, and nobody will prepare you. And that’s frustrating. Because people will tell you to “reach for the stars—you can achieve whatever you want!” But they don’t mention you might get hit by a comet in the process.

It’s time to accept the things that you cannot change and focus on the things you can. What can you do?

Give yourself a break. Try to stay positive, despite the doom and gloom. Overdosing on pessimistic, overly dramatic news coverage is just going to weigh you down with bad thoughts—not good for those looking to clear their heads and get things done! It’s important to be informed about what is happening in the world, but you definitely don’t want to overdo it.

For months now, we’ve been bombarded with bad economic news every time we turn on the television or pick up a newspaper. No wonder everybody seems to be in a rut. Follow the daily news as much as you need to so that you feel in the loop and understand the issues that affect your industry. Other than that, it might be time to shut off the TV and catch up on some fun reading or spend some more time with family.

Know your job. Seems like this one should be a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed at how often our responsibilities can change and evolve without our even knowing it. Small incremental changes in how employees or departments do business can add up over time, leaving groups of people that work hard, but aren’t contributing to business objectives as effectively as they once did.

For example, in an effort to provide an exceptional level of service, you might find yourself doing work that is below your pay grade. Maybe you end up doing a large portion of the administrative work associated with a project that needs your input. Consider the value of your time!

Make sure that the things that occupy your time are worthy of your talent and expertise and hold your staff to the same standard. With any project, you should be able to look at the time spent, multiply by the pay rate of the ones doing the work, and still feel that your resources were well spent.

If you’ve got a $40,000/year employee stuffing a bunch of envelopes (even just that one time) or a six-figure manager assembling an important presentation page-by-page, then that work becomes awfully expensive!

These examples might seem outrageous to you, but believe me, it happens all the time. Never make the mistake of treating your time like it’s free. Time and other resources are limited, and we need to treat them that way.

As your company and your department are undoubtedly being asked to do more with less, now is the time to step back and take stock of the type of work you’re doing. Many times roles and responsibilities change, but job descriptions do not. As a result, we end up drifting away from core priorities and towards dong work that, while challenging, doesn’t really meet the organization’s immediate needs.

Now might be a good time to step back and ask that all important question: “Why am I (or we) doing this?” If you can’t answer that, or the answer doesn’t make sense, it’s time to purposefully make a change.

Break habits, build systems. Every office that has been around for any length of time has certain unwritten policies and procedures that exist simply because “we’ve always done it that way.” Now is a great opportunity to analyze your existing business practices and find opportunities to break the bad habits that may be bogging your operation down. Take you entire department for example. Do you and your people have a clear idea of your area’s specific responsibilities? Do you have the confidence and determination to say “no” when someone is asking you to do work that is outside your scope of responsibility?

Perhaps over the years your group took on the responsibility of coordinating quarterly meetings with senior managers. It might have made sense for you to be doing the legwork then, but now that the work has become routine, is it really the best use of your talent and resources?

That’s just one specific example, but there are many more out there. Usually, these are the kinds of tasks and responsibilities that make employees want to ask the all-important “Why am I doing this?” question. Rather than spend another day mindlessly plowing though projects that may or may not be a good use of your time, force yourself to take a hard look at what you are doing and why you are doing it.

If you had to pick three tasks or responsibilities that should be the top priorities for your department, what would they be? Once you know, evaluate how much time and energy is dedicated to those things. You might be surprised at how much time we can spend doing things that aren’t even close to the top of that priorities list.

It isn’t always easy to say “no,” but fortunately, that’s where your systems can come in. As you work to create smooth, efficient systems to do work within your department, you can give yourself some ammunition to fend off others in the company that might be inclined to slide work onto your plate where it doesn’t belong. If you don’t have firm policies and procedures in place to identify who should be doing what, it is much more difficult to make the case for “no.”

Analyze your relationships with other departments. Have trouble turning down work coming from other areas of the company? Now is a perfect time to start fresh and rebuild your department’s boundaries. In a frank and honest way, simply explain to others that in light of the current economic situation, your group has taken a critical look at its daily operations and needs to decline certain types of requests in order to build efficiency.

Perhaps you need to apply a little systems thinking and rethink the flow of information. Is there a procedure in place for other business units to request your assistance or input? If there’s not, you’re probably being hit from all angles with requests that may or may not be the best use of your time. Diagram how work moves through your department. Where does it come in from and go out to other departments? Interview your internal customers and find out how you can provide value through reduced services. Can you provide a report monthly instead of quarterly? Can you cancel the weekly project meeting and get everyone to email updates instead? Question travel requests if you feel a conference call will do. One of the best ways to take stock of the situation is to survey your group, ask them what gets in the way of productivity, and to genuinely ask how they would redesign things if they could.

Find the bottom line. Right now, businesses everywhere are taking stock of their must-haves versus their nice-to-haves. From an organizational perspective, which are you?

Economic necessity can force budget cuts and cost containment that might otherwise be unnecessary. One way to prepare yourself for this reality is to make sure you have a good understanding of how you and your people contribute to the company’s bottom line.

Sometimes, it’s easy. If you work in sales, for example, the correlation between what you do every day and the company’s financial success might be very straightforward—my group sells our most profitable product, which makes the company money.

Sometimes that correlation is not so obvious. If you operate in a support role, like Human Resources, you may want to start looking at your various responsibilities and deciding which among them have the greatest influence on the company’s bottom line—either by somehow driving revenue or by controlling expenses. Perhaps you help contribute to developing talent within the company, which clearly has an impact on the overall success of the organization. Employee development always seems to be one of the first things to go during down economic times, but this is not the time to reduce training if you'd like to get more work from fewer people. Or maybe you’re managing clerical or administrative functions that would be expensive to secure elsewhere.
If you can’t draw a line from what you do each day to the financial well-being of the company, then it might be time to do some hard thinking. Your other contributions might be valuable, but in difficult economic times, corporate leadership often becomes must more focused on dollars and cents, for better or for worse.

Where am I going with this? If it isn’t obvious how your contributions benefit the company, be prepared to explain how they do. If you CAN’T explain why certain aspects of what you do are valuable, then it’s time to stop doing them.

At the end of the day, productivity is about more than getting things done. It’s about getting the RIGHT things done and getting them done efficiently.

Make it a productive day! (TM)

(C) Copyright 2008 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

 

Abandonment, outsourcing, discipline and other difficult productivity questions

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Time is your most valuable possession. What tasks do you devote the most energy to every day? You may be working hard to climb the big ladder of success, but you'll waste a lot of energy (and time) if you discover it's leaning on the wrong wall. An intense, personal commitment to achieving your goals gives you the vigor you need to move forward every day. 

Try these time management tips on for size.

1. Practice purposeful abandonment. If you have too much on your plate, get rid of anything that doesn't meet your objectives or have long-term consequences for your work. Your only other option is overwork and flagging energy.

2. Get some help. Don't try to do everything yourself, especially if you're running a business. Hire someone to deal with all the repetitive or minor tasks anyone can do, so you can get the important work done.

3. Focus on value. Work when you're at work: don't check your eBay listings, surf the Internet, or answer your private email. Otherwise, you're robbing yourself of your precious, irreplaceable minutes.

4. Outsource to a third party. If you're overloaded with tasks that someone else can do more cheaply, then by all means hire someone to do them. Specialist websites like Elance.com can be lifesavers in such a situation. 

5. Do one thing at a time. Even if you're good at multitasking, do just one thing at a time. Otherwise, you're giving each task less than the attention it deserves, and it'll take you longer to get things done.

6. Be disciplined. When you promise someone you'll complete a task by a certain timeframe, do you do it? Or does the deadline slip past, with you muttering to yourself, "Stupid. What's wrong with you?" Guilt sucks the energy right out of you, so avoid it by forcing yourself to get your work done on time.   

7. Make some progress. Don't just maintain the status quo; work to get something done every day. Understand the difference between maintenance and progress, and make sure there's some forward momentum to at least some of your tasks.

8. Realize that your to-do list is never going to end until you're dead. You're not going to get it all done; there will always be more things to do than time to do them in. It's called life. That's okay; what would you do with yourself if your to-do list did end? 

When you work on a task, your capacity to work on other tasks will slowly decline.  When your energy is depleted, you don’t work well until you catch your "second wind" and your energy is replenished.  So you must select tasks purposefully, making sure the most important things get the lion's share of your energy and attention.

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004).  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M.  To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401.  Visit www.TheProductivityPro.com to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.

Completing personal chores and responsibilities more efficiently

(NOTE: We're moving!  The Productivity Pro(R) blog has moved to http://www.theproductivitypro.com/blog/.  We will continue to post here through May as well.  Please click on that link and subscribe to the new feed, or you won't receive posts after May.)

Unfortunately, not all of our tasks excite us, so spending energy on them feels wasteful.  If an activity's not challenging or offers no reward, motivation is difficult. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could complete your tasks more efficiently, so you'd have energy to spare? Well, I can help you with that.

1. Get your domestic duties done. Develop an evening routine, and make sure everyone in the family takes part. This will help you retain your sanity, happiness, and energy level, and teach other family members to respect others' boundaries. 

2. Enlist help with meals. Cooking dinner every night can be a real grind. Cook more than your family will eat so that you can browse on leftovers some evenings, and teach your children how to cook -- they need to learn anyway.

3. Divvy up chores. Every single member of the family should contribute to household chores, as age allows. Try not to make chores gender-specific. Girls should know how to mow the lawn, and boys should know how to cook. These are basic life skills that they'll need as adults.

4. Communicate clearly. Clear communication is vital, because it's a time- and energy-saver. Don't assume that you know what someone means when they're assigning you a task. Ask questions, clarify, and challenge unrealistic deadlines. 

5. Focus on what's important. Don't be a perfectionist, and don't perform menial
tasks that someone else can do more cheaply. Do first what's due first, try to resolve small items quickly, and don't spend too much time on low-priority items.

6. Transform your outlook about necessary tasks.  If you dread something, you're likely to put it off -- which can be disastrous if that task is absolutely necessary. Do what you can to make it easier, but if you can't change the situation, then change your mind.   

7. Don't procrastinate. Force yourself to complete your work quickly, even if you hate it or are afraid you'll have nothing to do later on. The reward is the freedom from the stress that not doing the work was causing you.

8. Work before play. Instead of doing the fun, easy, or trivial tasks first, do the hard ones. After you're done, you can read a book, take a long hot bath, watch the sunset, or whatever it is you love to do. Having a reward waiting can help you get it done faster, because you have something to look forward to.   

Spending energy completing low-value tasks feels like a waste of time, but it's as necessary to mop the kitchen floor as it is to buy groceries or enjoy quality time with the family. Learn how to do your chores quickly and efficiently, and you can better enjoy the rest of your life.

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004).  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M.  To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401.  Visit www.TheProductivityPro.com to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.

What to do when you feel your energy slipping away...

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PACING:  Plug Me In

Even if you start out the day with plenty of fuel, you may eventually feel that energy slipping away. You can be zipping along just fine, then -- Boom! -- you hit what sports enthusiasts call "the wall." How well you handle your energy budget will determine whether you break through the wall and move on to the rest of your day, or just bounce off and slog through the mental mud. Try these tips to stay on the straight and narrow.

1. Stand instead of sit. You're not designed to sit for hours on end. Work regular physical movement into your work day, especially if most of your work is conducted at a desk. At the very least, stand up and stretch occasionally.

2. Give yourself a break. Failing to take breaks can affect your short-term energy and long-term health. Take a few minutes off from the grind occasionally so your body can restore your strength and energy.

3. Walk around on your breaks. Instead of drinking coffee and reading the paper while on break, walk around a bit. This lets your body process glucose better, giving you a burst of energy that'll kick in about the time you get back to work.

4. Try creative desk energy renewal strategies. Jobs requiring an intense focus can be intensely draining. Take an occasional break and renew yourself through meditation, deep breathing, prayer, stretching -- whatever works for you.

5. Find an encouragement partner.  If you're stuck with a boring task, find someone you can call up when you're temporarily burnt out. You can perform the same function for your partner; encouraging them can keep you on track, too.

6. Watch your posture. Don't slouch. Doing so uses up more energy than sitting up straight, and can also stress your musculature and skeleton. Getting a good, ergonomic chair can go a long way towards maintaining your proper energy level.

7. Pace yourself. Remember, you're not a machine; don't squander your energy early in the day, or you'll fade by mid-afternoon. Rest is as important as hard work for achieving anything of consequence in a decent amount of time.

8. Respect your biological cycles. No matter what you do, you'll go through energy cycles during the day. Circadian rhythms, sleep cycles, hormone cycles, and similar biological clocks can all conspire to rob you of energy. Instead of trying to work through the low cycles, take a few minutes off to revamp your energy level.

No matter how often you might wish otherwise, you're not a robot and can't go non-stop, especially if you're desk-bound for most of the day. Occasional breaks are necessary for mental and physical health. You need to get up and stretch your legs, to get your heart pumping and your blood circulating -- or you just may start feeling rusty!

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004).  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M.  To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401.  Visit www.TheProductivityPro.com to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.

How do I keep my energy levels high?

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If you want to be like the Energizer Bunny and keep going and going and going all day long, you need to supercharge your metabolism -- the cellular process by which your body converts food calories into energy. This isn't necessarily easy, and it requires an understanding of your own biochemical makeup and metabolism. Here are a few ways you can get started.

1.     Practice the power of eight. Boost your body's metabolism by exercising vigorously, lifting weights, eating 5-6 small, healthy meals a day, keeping yourself hydrated, and cutting back on stimulants.

2.     Keep your glucose level up. If your blood sugar level drops too low, you may end up becoming tired, weak, hungry, nervous, and anxious -- and worse, incoherent. Keep quick energy sources close at hand, just in case.

3.     Get yourself checked for diabetes. If you're constantly hungry, chilly and fatigued, you may be suffering from diabetes -- a metabolic inability to process glucose properly. Go to a doctor and have a blood test done.

4.     Schedule your meals. If you eat irregularly or only when you're hungry, you're likely to destabilize your blood sugar level. Always eat breakfast, never skip a meal, and consider eating numerous small meals instead of three big ones.

5.     Eat high energy foods.  Trim "sleepy" foods, like pasta, bread, bagels, muffins, and cookies, out of your diet where you can. You're better served eating high-energy foods like meat, raisins, Concord grapes, bananas, and broccoli.

6.     Pep up your metabolism. If you've got a ho-hum metabolism, try eating foods that can help speed it up. Spicy foods and green tea have both proven effective at boosting the metabolism; green tea extract offers the most bang for your buck.

7.     Cut the caffeine. Caffeine may give you a quick burst of energy, but you could pay for it later with high blood pressure, insomnia, stress, and addiction. If you can't give up that daily Starbucks run, at least cut back from venti to grande.

8.     Boost your intake of calcium, iron, and magnesium. These three minerals are absolutely essential to bone, blood, and mental function, so you should eat foods that are rich in each. Failing that, take a good multivitamin daily.

The rate of metabolism varies from person to person -- among other things, gender, age, amount of muscle mass, and how much you exercise will all affect your metabolic rate --but that doesn't mean you can't tweak it for maximal performance. Follow these guidelines, and you'll have your metabolism revved up in no time.



© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004).  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M.  To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401.  Visit www.TheProductivityPro.com <http://www.theproductivitypro.com/>  to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.

Exercise? But I'm too tired to exercise!

It'll infuse your energy and boost your mood. It'll help you lose weight and decrease your risk of disease. It's a miracle! But 80% of Americans don't take it, even at its lowest dosage. Why? Because it's exercise.

Exercising will give you the energy you need, because it speeds up blood flow and your breathing rate, which brings more oxygen to your heart, lungs, brain, and muscles -- and when it comes to high energy, oxygen is your friend. Here's what you can do to bring on the O2:

1. Do something for thirty minutes. Any type of aerobic exercise strengthens your heart and lungs and improves blood flow. It also releases endorphins (nature's painkillers), improves your mood, and fortifies you against minor viral illnesses.

2. Stop relying on your car so much. Walking is an excellent form of aerobic exercise, and it's surprisingly effective at boosting your energy level. For best results, buy a pedometer and make sure you walk 6,000-10,000 steps a day.

3. Include weights in your fitness routine. Lifting weights is the most effective way to build up strong muscles, which leads to stronger bones and a reduced risk of injury. It also speeds up oxygen flow, which will help perk you up.

4. Sneak fitness into your routine. Instead of complaining that you don't have time to exercise, try sneaking in a little while you're doing something else. Park farther away from the store while shopping, for instance, or do squats while reading.

5. Shake up your workout. If your exercise routine has you bored out of your skull, try something different. Change your level of effort, shuffle your workout into a new order, or experiment with a new kind of workout altogether.

6. Work out when you travel. Have you ever decided it's too much trouble to bother with your normal fitness routine when traveling? Instead of rationalizing yourself out of exercising, create a travel workout plan and stick to it.

7. Get a workout buddy. If you lack the discipline to exercise regularly on your own, work out with someone else: a family member, a friend, even a paid trainer. That way you'll have someone to lean on, who'll guilt you into exercising when you don't want to.

8. Bribe yourself. Offer yourself a little reward for completing a workout. It could be anything that makes you happy: a new outfit, a round of golf with your buddies, or a favorite TV show you only to watch while exercising.

The less active you are, the less energy you'll have: it's that simple. A sedentary lifestyle contributes greatly to fatigue -- so fight that fatigue with the oxygen burst that regular exercise will contribute. Figure out how to move, and move daily.

© 2008 Laura Stack. Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations. Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces. She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004). Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M. To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401. Visit www.TheProductivityPro.com to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.

How will sugar, water, and stimulants affect my work during the day?

(NOTE: We're moving!  The Productivity Pro(R) blog has moved to http://www.theproductivitypro.com/blog/.  We will continue to post here through May as well.  Please change your feed to the new address, or you won't receive posts after May.)

Poor nutrition can be as draining as the wrong diet, and the consequences can sneak up on you. If you're constantly dragging, and you suffer headaches or an inability to get enough sleep despite following proper sleep habits, you may be suffering from a nutritional deficiency.

Sometimes, all you have to do to power up your energy is to recognize the symptoms of nutritional imbalances, and then to take steps to address them. These tips can help you with that.

1. Get a good balance of essential nutrients. Things can go wrong with your body if you don't make sure it gets all it needs to function right. Check your symptoms, and eat more of what you might be lacking. Vitamins may be in order, too.

2. Replace favorite foods with metabolism-boosting substitutes. Too much sugar can activate your appetite instead of control it. Try an egg-white omelet in the morning instead of cereal, or a protein shake in the afternoon.

3. Hydrate yourself. If you feel like you're drained dry, maybe you are. While technically not a nutrient, we don't get all the water we need from the food we eat, so supplementation is essential.

4. Steer clear of stimulants. There's no doubt that stimulants perk you up, but they do it in a way that you have to pay for later. Even legal stimulants trigger a "fight-or-flight" reflex that releases stress hormones, followed by a big energy slump.

5. Limit your alcohol consumption. Will the occasional beer or glass of wine with dinner hurt you? Not really, but alcohol is a depressant; too much at any one time can negatively impact your energy level for a day or more.

6. Stop smoking! Not only does the kickback from nicotine cause a short-term energy loss, in the long term, smoking can damage your lungs, decreasing your ability to take in oxygen -- a vital energy fuel.

7. Focus on convenience. If you're working hard to increase your energy level through good nutritional habits, make it easier to succeed. Start by limiting the worst energy stealers in your environment, and make it convenient to eat right.

8. Clear your house of junk. Get rid of those temptations! Keep sugary and high-fat snacks out of your cupboard, both at work and at home, and clear out the liquor cabinet, too. Don't forget to throw out the cigarettes while you're at it.

Your body needs certain food and nutrients for repair, growth, and energy. If you're not getting all you need, you'll eventually run down. So learn to overcome your poor nutritional habits, or you'll pay the metabolic price.

© 2008 Laura Stack. Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations. Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces. She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004). Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M. To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401. Visit www.TheProductivityPro.com <http://www.theproductivitypro.com/> to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.