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

Office Productivity: The 12 Dysfunctional Personal Productivity Personalities!

Everyone has a productivity personality. It’s the collection of strengths, weaknesses, and day-to-day habits that come together to determine how a person works best.

I’ve written often about how important it is to get a handle on your own personal productivity personality, but it’s important that you don’t stop there. After all, most of us depend on others at some point in our day and the individual work styles and attitudes of those around us can have a huge impact on our own ability to get things done.

That’s why I put together a list of the 12 dysfunctional personal productivity personalities. Hopefully this list will help you smile (rather than cringe) the next time a coworker’s bad habits start to drive you up the wall. I’ve also included some thoughts on how to deal with each of these pesky personalities.

So here they are, in no particular order:

1. Scrappers. The scrapper’s desk look like a modern art exhibit, covered in scraps of paper and sticky notes. They write important notes on whatever is close at hand, whether it’s a fast food receipt or the back of an envelope (a scrapper’s favorite).

Handling the scrapper: You can’t force scrappers to adopt a comprehensive planning system or put all of those little scraps into Outlook or a BlackBerry (although you could try to coach them). What you can do is make sure that items pertaining to your work don’t get lost in the shuffle. Send follow-up e-mails detailing key meeting take-aways, check in before important deadlines, and never fail to follow up on a delegated task.

2. Pilers. Pilers have a lot in common with scrappers, except it is generally much more difficult to navigate your way through the piler’s office. They keep everything and file nothing. There will be boxes on the floor and every inch of desk space will be occupied by stacks of paper, generally piled up to the point that an archeologist could use them to figure out what the piler has been working on for the last five years.

Handling the piler: The best thing you can do for the piler is simple: don’t add anything to the piles. Chances are that any document, book, or report that you put in the piler’s hands is going to end up in heap someplace, where it is probably as good as gone. Never hand your only hard copy over to a piler unless you are ready to kiss it goodbye. Also, be sure to set clear deadlines. Their idea of giving something a high priority is placing it on their (generally largest) “immediate attention” stack. Don’t ask them to do something “right away,” ask them to do it by a specific date.

3. Multi-taskers. Multi-taskers always have a thousand things going on at once and generally take pride in it. They flit from task to task, getting many things started but few things completed. And they often appear frazzled, overwhelmed, and scattered.

Handling the multi-tasker: Always use caution when working with a multi-tasker. He or she will rarely admit that they don’t have the capacity to take on another task and can easily become distracted by competing priorities. Always double-check, very directly, with multi-taskers to make sure that they can and will do what is expected in an agreed-upon timeframe.

4. Interrupters. “Gotta minute?” It’s practically the interrupter’s catch phrase. They will constantly show up at your desk, interrupting your day and derailing your train of thought. Their interruptions are sometimes trivial and sometimes relevant, but almost always ill-timed.

Handling the interrupter: You have to be honest on this one. If someone asks if you have a minute, don’t be afraid to tell them you don’t. The more cautiously you guard your own time, the more others will begin thinking twice before asking for it needlessly. A polite response to an interruption is to simply point out that no, you don’t have any time right now but would be happy to meet later in the day if needed. Beyond that, a simple “Do Not Disturb” sign can go a long way – just don’t abuse it.

5. Procrastinators. Some people seem clinically incapable of doing anything before the last possible moment. They start things with just enough time to squeeze them in before the deadline. You’ll also notice that procrastinators tend to put off high-value (often challenging) tasks in favor of more pleasant, less critical ones.

Handling the procrastinator: Don’t let a procrastinator drag your project team down. The best way to get out ahead of a procrastinator is to plan in advance and evaluate results on an ongoing basis, not just when the work is done. If your procrastinator is expected to deliver a weekly progress report, they’ll be more likely to stay on track. Of course, you should probably steer clear immediately before your meeting. That will be crunch time.

6. Socializers. Socializers waste inordinate amounts of time chatting with coworkers and keeping up with the personal lives of everyone at the office. They’re great at planning the company party, but tend to fall short in other ways.

Handling the socializer: Socializers do what they do because they get something out of it – interaction, stress relief, distraction from work, whatever. If you don’t have anything along those lines to offer, they’ll lost interest in you pretty quickly. You just need to be sure not to play along. If you’re in the habit of nodding your head and smiling while others talk your ear off, then you are part of the problem. Politely point out that you are trying to keep your day on track and need to get back to what you were doing.

7. Meeting addicts. Some people apparently just love to call meetings. Maybe they really enjoy the setting and the interaction or maybe it honestly has never occurred to them that it is possible to get things done without putting half the department around a conference table. Either way, the result is a lot of time wasted by everyone involved.

Handling the meeting addict: First of all, don’t be afraid to decline a meeting when it’s appropriate to do so. Simply state that you don’t feel your presence is needed and ask that you be kept in the loop on any important outcomes that might affect your work. Second, don’t be afraid to suggest an alternative to a meeting. When you get the request, simply call the organizer to ask if the matter could be handled by e-mail or conference call. In fact, you might be able to resolve the issue on the spot and save everyone a lot of time and disruption.

8. Crisis creators. We’ve all been there. A lack of planning by one person leads to a crisis for everyone else. Even minor issues are exaggerated into a full-blown disaster and everyone involved ends up feeling stressed and drained as a result. Crisis creators seem to always be fighting fires and coworkers are often dragged into the fray.

Handling the crisis creator: Unfortunately, we often have to step in and help fight fires even if they aren’t our fault. If a certain individual is constantly working in crisis mode, it is important that you don’t play into the drama. Keep a cool head and don’t get overly stressed. Then, once the crisis is resolved, insist on a debriefing meeting to figure out what went wrong. Once crisis creators realize that problems aren’t going to be forgotten once the crisis is over, they’ll be more inclined to stay out of trouble in the first place.

9. E-mailers. They send an e-mail for everything. It doesn’t matter how simple or how complicated an issue is, an e-mail message is the answer. They never use the phone, they never walk across the hall to deliver a ten-word message, and they usually LOVE the “Reply All” button.

Handling the e-mailer: Usually you won’t have much luck influencing the e-mail habits of a colleague, although you can specifically request the recipients do NOT Reply to All but respond to you directly instead. What you CAN do is set clear expectations concerning your own use of e-mail. If you only check your messages a few times each day, tell people that so they don’t expect you to treat Outlook like an instant messaging service. People are generally pragmatic about things and if e-mail isn’t a good way to get a response from you, they’ll stop using it for everything.

10. Packrats. Packrats have never thrown anything away in their professional lives. They don’t worry about the company’s records retention policy, because they retain everything, no matter what. They are often overwhelmed by their own treasure trove of obsolete documents, but will come in handy if you ever need to take a look at the final report from that project that was cancelled in 1986.

Handling the packrat: Packrats are sometimes highly organized creatures, but are often more worried about the thickness of their project files than they are about what’s inside. Never trust a packrat to manage priorities or to take away the key points from any given interaction. Be direct about what you need from them so you don’t end up with a ton of unnecessary research or extraneous background information. Just the facts, please.

11. Perfectionists. By insisting on doing everything perfectly, perfectionists generally fail to accomplish much at all. They can never finish, because it “can always be better.” They work hard, but complete little. Perfectionists keep meticulous meeting notes, promise the world during planning sessions, and often seem to crack up just as the project is coming together.

Handling the perfectionist: When you are working with a perfectionist, it’s a good idea to plan for frequent touch points throughout the project. Rather than expecting to reconvene at the end, schedule several synch-up meetings along the way. Define the level of expectation and the exact deliverables. This will help keep the perfectionist working in manageable (if imperfect) chunks and also give the person a chance to dazzle you with little presentations throughout the project. Perfectionists just love that.

12. Workaholics. The workaholic works an 80 hour week and never misses an opportunity to remind you of it. Puzzling, though, is the fact that they seem to accomplish less than others working half the hours. The workaholic typically has no boundaries between work and home life.

Handling the workaholic: Remember that to a workaholic, “end of day” does not mean five o’clock. Usually, it means “before tomorrow.” When you are expecting something from a workaholic, keep in mind that you will likely see an e-mail roll in at 10:45 p.m. Also remember that there is no sense of urgency to a workaholic. Since they plan to be working into the evening anyway, they tend to waste time during normal business hours. You can subtlety nudge them in your direction by saying things such as “I’d like to have that by three o’clock so that I can be out the door on time tonight.”

I have no doubt that at least a few of these 12 dysfunctional productivity personalities will have you smiling and thinking of someone you work with. But also keep in mind that each of us has a little of one or more of these personalities in us as well. So as we work to deal better with our chronically troublesome coworkers, we should also be willing to improve on our own little areas of personal dysfunction. Now THAT is productivity improvement!

What dysfunctional personality styles would you add?

Make it a productive day! ™

(C) Copyright 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

Microsoft Virtual Outlook Training with Laura Stack

Announcing The Productivity Pro® Microsoft Outlook virtual training series! Attend “live” training with Laura Stack, a Microsoft Certified Specialist in Outlook, from the privacy of your home or office.

I’m going to present ten modules covering various aspects of Outlook step-by-step. This isn’t just computer training. It’s real-world, reality-based workflow processing that helps you actually be MORE productive with Outlook, instead of wasting hours every day playing with it. I estimate most people know 10-20% of the capacities of Outlook. Even if you think you’re an “expert,” you’ll be shocked by what you don’t know you don’t know.

I’m making each one-hour webinar very affordable at $39 per person. If you attend all ten, the price is discounted to $349 per person. If for some reason you miss the class, don’t worry. The recording will be available for two weeks after the session, and each person will receive a detailed PDF workbook to accompany each webinar, with detailed screen shots, so you can duplicate what I do in the seminar.

NOTE: This is a one-person license, so you can’t have someone watch over your shoulder or forward the URL to others. If you want to project the seminar in your conference room, just call us at 303-471-7401 and tell us how many people are attending, and we’ll manually charge your credit card $39 per person. We use the honor system—only you will know if you cheat.

There is nothing to download. As long as you have access to the Internet and sound from your speakers, you can attend. You don’t dial in via phone, as this platform features VOIP (voice over internet protocol), and you listen right from your own computer. I DO recommend you purchase an inexpensive USB headset (such as the Logitech ClearChat Comfort for around $40) that plugs right into your USB and offers great sound quality and privacy from your office neighbors.

TIMES

I will offer different sessions for 2003 and 2007 users, so make sure to sign up for the right seminar. The 2003 series will be held at 11:00 Pacific/12:00 Mountain/1:00 Central/2:00 eastern. The 2007 series will be held at 1:00 pacific/2:00 mountain/3:00 central/4:00 eastern.

MODULES

Click here for the module topics and to register.

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.

 

Laura Stack’s Top Thirty Best Practices for Scheduling Your Day and Setting Appointments

This is the feature article for August's productivity newletter.  For this month's complete newsletter, please visit http://www.theproductivitypro.com/r_newsletters.htm

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We have moved our blog to www.TheProductivityPro.com/blog

Laura Stack’s Top Thirty Best Practices for Scheduling Your Day and Setting Appointments

1. Determine if you really need to meet in person.  How many times have you attended a meeting and asked yourself, “Why am I here?”  Hopefully, you’ve started protecting your time from every person who wants a piece of it.  If my clients want to meet in person, I charge a consulting fee.  For telephone calls, no charge.  Ninety percent of the time, a conference call will suffice.  Extra travel time and expenses are involved when meeting in person, so avoid it unless dialogue and brainstorming are required.

2. Have meeting requests and responses go to your delegate, not to you.  Don’t wade through all the responses; that’s why you have an assistant (if you do).  Under Tools, Options, Delegates, select “Send meeting requests and responses only to my delegates, not to me.”  Brilliant.

3. Create a private calendar to post appointments you don’t want others to see.  We are all used to email folders, where we file email.  Most people, however, have never created a calendar folder.  A calendar folder IS a new calendar.  To create one, follow the same drill for creating an email folder (right-click on the Calendar in the folder list and select New Folder).  However, make sure the folder contains “Calendar Items” in the drop-down box.  Give your new calendar a name such as “Kids Summer Schedule” or “Laura’s personal calendar.”  I kept track of my kids’ summer activities in one, so my husband would know where his schedule was impacted for driving duty.

4. Or, check your appointments as Private when you don’t want others to read the text.  Yes, you can!  The Private box is a little, tiny box in the bottom right-hand side of your screen (Outlook 2003) when you create a new appointment.  People who share your calendar will still see a block and that you’re unavailable, but they can’t read the appointment text. 

5. Use the Category box to indicate the project, team, or committee.  Every time you schedule an appointment or accept a meeting invitation, indicate what project it’s related to in the Category box.  Use the Master Category List to add your labels.  “Tag” each appointment with one or multiple categories.  Then under the View menu, select Arrange by, Current View, By Category.  Then you can see all meetings, past and present, you had with a certain group, person, project, committee, etc.

6. Use Contacts to Find Meetings.  Can’t find an upcoming meeting with someone you know you scheduled?  Tired of searching your calendar manually to find it?  Instead, get into the habits of using the Contacts box at the bottom left of each appointment, to indicate whom you’re meeting with (can be multiple people).  To find all upcoming meetings with a particular person, go to that Contact’s address card, select the Activities tab, and in the drop-down box, select Upcoming Tasks/Appointments. The people must be loaded in your personal Contacts list (not just your company’s global address book) for this to work.  If a meeting invitation is used, this feature is automatic, and you don’t need to select the names. 

7. As a courtesy to your coworkers, send a meeting invitation instead of an email when you’d like to connect.  Rather than emailing colleagues and asking, “What’s your schedule today?  Can we get together for 30 minutes?” take a minute to schedule a meeting invitation.  While in your Calendar, select Actions, New Meeting Request, Scheduling Tab, Add Others, Add from Address Book, and select attendees.  Check their availability on the calendar (this assumes you’ve been granted access to their calendars) and find an open time (or select AutoPick to let Outlook find the next available date/time).  Send the meeting request.  When invitees receive it, they can simply click Accept, and Outlook moves the appointment to their calendars for them.  This saves the recipient time and also saves you from trying to coordinate multiple calendars manually.

8. If someone does send an email wanting to meet, convert it into an appointment.  If your colleagues don’t understand the meeting feature and insist on sending emails for appointments, you can quickly turn an email into a Calendar item.  Right-click on the email, select Move to Folder, and then Calendar.  A new appointment window automatically opens, containing your email and any attachments.  Fill in the date, time, and details, and then Save and Close.  The message is moved from the Inbox into the Calendar automatically.  No more manual copying and pasting!

9. Use labels to quickly “see” the layout of your schedule for the day.  Right-click on any appointment in your calendar.  Select Label.  Select Edit Labels.  Change the text to display the colors as you’d like.  Pick colors consistently with your team (travel, multiple locations, training, personal, vacation, meeting, video conference, etc.) so you can quickly see where team members are working and what they’re doing.

10. Block out time to work.  Sometimes you might want to actually schedule an appointment to WORK.  To protect your time from others, schedule a Task on your Calendar (Outlook 2003).  With the Task Pad view in the Calendar showing, click on a Task you’d like to complete.  Hold the left mouse key down while you drag it to your calendar and release.  An Appointment window will pop up, automatically inserting the task into the text portion of the appointment item.  Fill in the time you want to work on the task on your calendar.  Change the Show Time as field to Tentative, if desired.  Save and close.  The task will still be kept in your Task Pad, but now you’ve blocked out time on your calendar to work on it.  NOTE: Do NOT put things you need to DO on your Calendar (that’s what Tasks are for), because if you don’t complete it, you’ll have to move it manually (not so with Tasks).

11. Keep your calendar up to date.  It’s frustrating when your colleagues are trying to set up appointments, and it appears that you’re open, so they send out a meeting request to a large group.  You respond, “Sorry, I have a conflict on that day/time,” to which they respond by banging their heads on the desk in frustration, asking, “Then WHY didn’t you have it on your calendar?”  Truly, if an organization is going to predictably use shared calendaring to coordinate meetings, you must keep yours current.  It’s fine to use a traditional paper method as well, but if you schedule something on your “other” calendar, make sure to update your electronic one at regular intervals as well.

12. Include travel time in a single appointment and put the actual meeting time in the subject.  If your meeting starts at 11:30, but it’s going to take you thirty minutes to drive there and fifteen minutes to get out of the building to your car, block out your calendar starting at 11:00 (so others can’t schedule with you).  Then write @11:30 in the subject line, so you know the actual meeting time.

13. Do not accept a meeting invitation if the requestor can’t state in one sentence the exact reason you are meeting.  For example:
 To inform our department of changes in the holiday pay policy.
 To sell management on our division’s plan to automate payroll processing.
 To brainstorm the best way to resolve the association’s budget deficit.
 To determine realistic sales goals for each region for next year.
 To discuss the critical skills required for successful performance as a first level supervisor.

14. Send lengthy reading materials at least 48 hours in advance.  Participants express frustration with wasting time in meetings reviewing materials that were just handed out.  They don’t have adequate time to digest the information and formulate questions.  They could have reviewed that document while waiting in the doctor’s office yesterday.  Don’t waste everyone’s time by forcing them to sit there and read together like kindergarteners—their time is much too expensive.

15. If updating a meeting already scheduled, send an update to the existing appointment.  If you have already set up a meeting and invited participants, sending an email about the meeting forces them to either copy and paste the additional information into the meeting or have two meeting blocks for the same event side by side on their calendars, forcing them to open two items to get complete information.  If you need to add information, send out a meeting update.  To contact meeting attendees with a reminder or other message, open the original meeting request, click the Actions menu, and select “New Message to Attendees.” 

16. Avoid meeting request responses.  If you’re sending a meeting request to a large group and don’t need or want responses, in the open new meeting request, on the Actions menu, uncheck the line Request Responses.  To make this the default.  Tools, Options, E-mail Options, Tracking Options, “Delete blank voting and meeting responses after processing.”  Or create a Rule (under Tools, Rules and Alerts, start from a blank rule) to automatically delete messages responses with certain words in the subject line.

17. Schedule time for preparation and action.  Depending on your level of involvement in the meeting, you need time to get ready.  You might need to start your preparation days before if you need to create a report or give a presentation.  When you accept a meeting, immediately go into your calendar and block off at least 15 additional minutes separately for prep time, a bio break, refreshing beverages, and transfer time—and add more as necessary for mental preparation and review.  Don’t walk into the meeting “cold.”  In the same way, block out time at the conclusion of the meeting to review action items, activate them into your time management system if you can’t complete them right then, and get organized. 

18. End meetings before the top or bottom of the hour.  If you’re the one scheduling the meeting, don’t use the standard Outlook settings of hour or half hour blocks.  If one meeting is from 1:00 to 2:00, immediately followed by another from 2:00 to 3:00, you will by default be late to your 2:00.  So use either :15 or :45 start and end times, to allow transition time.

19. Limit attendees to meetings. More is not merrier.  Think through who really needs to be there.  Don’t worry about “hurting someone’s feelings” if they aren’t included.  If you simply want to keep a stakeholder or player in the loop, select them as “optional,” instead of “required.”  Always assume that higher-ups have things to do that are much better uses of their time than sitting in your meeting.  Think about how much money people are paid, and ask if your meeting is worth an hour of their pay PLUS what they otherwise could have been doing if they weren’t stuck in your meeting.  Only invite people if they have a direct contribution to make to the meeting objective, and the desired decisions would not be able to be made without them.  If their presence is only required for ten minutes, give them the first ten minutes, and then allow them to graciously depart.  Keeping others who aren’t invited informed can be done with a quick email summary or inclusion on the distribution list of any meeting notes or minutes.

20. Confirm everything.  I’ve often shown up for a meeting and the other person “forgot.” You’d like to think adults are all responsible and will do what they say they will do, but it’s always better to dash off a quick email.  “Looking forward to seeing you on (date) at (time) at (location).  Let me know if something comes up.”  I don’t make people confirm that things are correct; I ask them to let me know if there is a change.  Also make sure you get directions and map it out well in advance of trying to run out the door.  I look at my calendar for the next day before I leave work and make sure I’m ready to roll on everything.  Confirm with attendees, too, when it’s your meeting.  Open the original meeting request, select Actions, and then New Message to Attendees.

21. Journal your meeting notes.  Many people don’t know how to use the Journal feature in Outlook or even what it’s for!  If you’ve ever accidentally clicked it, you’ll get a pop-up box that asks you if you’re SURE you want to turn on the Journal.  Most people freak out and click NO.  Next time, click yes.  Open a new Journal entry, type up your meeting notes, put in the day/time of the meeting, indicate in the Contacts field who was at the meeting, and select a Category for the meeting name or project.  When you select that Contact and click the Activities tab, you’ll be able to see the Journal entries (notes) from every meeting you’ve ever had with that person. You can also pull up your Journal entries by Category to review meeting notes as far back as you’d like.  OR give your notes to your assistant, have him type them up in the text field of the original meeting notice, save, and send a message to attendees (under Actions).

22. Avoid meetings on Fridays.  Many departments and teams just decide as an informal policy to schedule meetings Monday-Thursday if at all possible.  Too many people try to take long weekends or duck out early, making scheduling and rescheduling a nightmare on these days, plus you’ll end up with a lot of no-shows.  I try to leave Fridays open for personal appointments.  I find if I put a doctor’s appointment in between business meetings, something always happens to derail one or the other.  It’s hard to get my mind switched between different realms as well.

23. Always send or request an agenda and include it in the text portion of the appointment or include as an attachment.  A basic agenda should include a statement of purpose (see #13), any logistical considerations, the decisions to be made, a list of the topics to discuss (in priority order), who is responsible for that item, and how long you are allotting for each one.  Ask participants if they have any changes to the agenda items to let you know in advance of the meeting, so you can make adjustments if necessary.  Once you get into the meeting, follow the agenda diligently, so you can ensure all points are covered, decisions are made, and the objective is achieved.

24. Don’t let Outlook pick the length of your meeting.  The default is one hour, so that’s how much time people normally schedule meetings!  Instead, match the length of the meeting to the purpose.  If you’ve done an agenda (see #23), and you’ve determined you’ll only need forty minutes, then schedule for that.  Time will expand to fill the amount of time available.  If you’ve promised folks you’ll be out of there, people tend to work toward that goal.  If there is slack time, more socializing will naturally take place and an hour will definitely get used.  Some people try to build in “buffer” time—don’t cave to this habit.  I purposefully under-schedule and announce the goal at the beginning, so everyone is actively moving forward.

25. For longer meeting, allow enough breaks. Give a break at least one break for every hour and 15 minutes, max.  Let attendees know at the outset what to expect.  If you keep rambling on, and they aren’t sure when they’ll get a bio break, they will just start getting up randomly and sneaking out.  If you clearly state at the beginning, “We will meet from now until 10:00, and then we’ll break until 10:10,” etc.  It is also common courtesy that if you’re meeting over a lunch hour to provide food.

26. Be considerate of those in other time zones.  If you’re in the Pacific Time zone, and some of your meeting participants are calling in from the east, a 2:00 meeting puts them into departure time.  Realize that people may have childcare commitments at the end of the day; an afternoon meeting (or vice versa for early mornings on the west coast) can severely inconvenience folks and reduce the odds of attendance.

27. Strike a balance on when to schedule a meeting.  If you schedule a meeting too far out, you’ll get a bunch of cancellations and requests to reschedule as you get closer—or you’ll just get trumped by someone higher up.  If you wait to schedule a meeting until the last minute, it’s hard to find a block of time when most people are readily available.  So it’s best to schedule around one to three weeks in advance.  Anything sooner than that or further than that is fraught with scheduling challenges and conflicts.

28. Let the meeting leader know as soon as you’re aware of a conflict with a scheduled meeting.  If you have a change in your calendar but don’t want to “rock the boat,” you inconvenience more people the longer you wait.  It takes effort to work schedules around appointments, so as soon as you know, raise the flag.  The chair can determine if they can make it without you or if the meeting should be moved.

29. Display multiple Outlook windows at one time.  Perhaps you want to see your calendar while looking at an email.  While in your Inbox, right-click on your Calendar (either on the Folder List or the icon) and select “Open in New Window.”  Outlook will open your Calendar in a separate window, which you can resize and move to where it’s most convenient for you, while still being able to switch back to the Inbox.  This is especially useful if you have a large monitor or dual monitors.

30. Customize your Calendar to your preferences.  Don’t be satisfied with the standard calendar layouts—make it your own!  For example, you can automatically add holidays to your calendar.  On the Tools menu, click Options, then Calendar Options, and then click Add Holidays.  The weekends are also compressed by default.  If you want to show Saturday and Sunday as separate boxes, right click in the Calendar and select Other Settings.  Uncheck the box that says Compress Weekend Days.  While you’re there, change the default setting for 30-minute time slots to 5, 6, 10, 15, or 60 minute slots (I use 15).  Frequently schedule with people in another time zone?  Avoid confusion by displaying another zone.  Under the Tools menu, select Options.  On the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options, Time Zone, and “Show an additional time zone” check box. Select the desired time zone and OK out of there.

Make it a productive day! ™

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

www.TheProductivityPro.com

The Paperless Office? What a Joke!

No matter how technologically savvy we become, we can't seem to eliminate paper. In fact, studies estimate that we generate up to ten times more paper than we did before the advent of the computer! How much of that paper is sitting in stacks on multiple surfaces all over your home and office?  To tame those mountains of paper, try throwing these ideas at them.

1. Consistently purge your files without fear. Before you embark on an overhaul of your filing systems, purge all the old junk first. Why spend time dealing with paper you're just going to toss anyway?

2. Create and maintain a filing system that allows you to find papers easily. If you can't find a particular piece of paperwork when you need it, it might as well not exist. Pick a logical filing scheme and follow it religiously.

3. Follow a daily processing system for staying on top of mail and paperwork. Keep track of your incoming mail and other paperwork every day, and use the 6-D system to deal with it: discard, do, delegate, date, drawer, or deter.

4. Handle bills in a timely fashion and keep up with bookkeeping. Limit the number of credit cards and checking accounts you have, and learn to file everything effectively so you know when bills are due. Online payments can help.

5. Know where you put every piece of paper you receive. Keep different types of paperwork in separate files, and think before you put something into a file: is it really worth my time and effort? For example, most store coupons aren't.

6. Handle phone calls and voice mail productively. Avoid phone tag, which does little but add to your daily paper deluge. Answering the phone when it rings can be much more effective. Also, start a phone log to keep track of who you've called and who's called you.

7. Use technology to reduce paper and complete tasks quickly. Utilize computers and related devices to automate what would ordinarily be paper-based tasks: e.g., holiday lists, contact management, word processing, and mass-mailings.

8. Keep important papers up to date and easy to locate. It's especially important to keep track of insurance, medical documents, and wills, and to keep them current at all times. Make a list of all your passwords and bank account numbers too, and make sure your loved ones know where to find that list.

9. Use a calendar system to track family members' schedules. Use ONE calendar that contains ALL your personal, family, and work commitments, so you can track and sync other people's schedules with your own.

10. Organize and keep up with my reading. If you've got too little time to keep up with your reading, cut back on your commitments, and try listening to audio books. Even better, ditch the stuff that's so dull it puts you to sleep.

It pays to spend a little time every day making your bill paying, filing, reading, tracking, and scheduling more manageable. If you don't get control of the paper monster, it'll get control of you. If that happens, you're likely to find yourself drowning in a sea of paper -- not exactly the most dignified way to go!

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, professional speaker, and author 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 company in Denver, Colorado, that caters to high-stress industries. Laura’s newest productivity book, The Exhaustion Cure (Broadway Books), hits bookstores in May 2008.  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, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and MolsonCoors.  Contact her at www.TheProductivityPro.com. 

Who’s in Charge: You or Your “Stuff”?

Do you own your possessions, or do your possessions own you? It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the stuff you've accumulated -- everything from toys and clothing, to tools and all the stuff you regularly use that still counts as clutter. If you're tired of all your stuff weighing you down, here are some ideas that may help you regain control.

1. Have a systematic plan to get and stay organized. The key to getting organized is FOCUS. Focus on getting one thing completed before moving to the next area. Act like a postage stamp: stick to one thing until you get there.

2. Eliminate clutter and resist adding more. Don't let your belongings control you. For a start, get rid of unhappy reminders from the past, stop keeping old magazines and newspapers, and don't buy things just because they're on sale.

3. Keep your briefcase, tote, or purse organized and clutter-free. Don't carry stuff around just because you might need it someday: all you'll end up with is a cluttered mess and a backache. Carry only what you need on a daily basis, keep everything tucked into its own slot, and always put things back after using them.

4. Maintain clutter-free drawers and closets. Don't just toss things in drawers and forget them. Make liberal use of file folders, trays, and dividers, and use baby food jars as handy paperclip holders and junk catchers. Closets should be subjected to a thorough cleaning at least twice a year.

5. Organize memorabilia such as photos and keepsakes. Before taking the time to organize an item, determine if it's something you should be keeping in the first place. Don't keep stuff that doesn't have any specific meaning or use to you.

6. Keep kids' toys, clothes, and books organized. Any family with children inevitably fights the battle of the messy monster. Having toys, clothes, and books around is inevitable, but clutter is not. Keep what's used, and get rid of the rest.

7. Set up and maintain your kitchen in an organized fashion. We spend so much time in the kitchen putting groceries away, preparing meals, and doing dishes, it's important to maintain an organized space. Be picky about what you keep, and always have frequently-used items close at hand.

8. Keep your car organized and clean. You don't want to have a two-ton trashcan on wheels. Organize the clutter that stays in the car, and never let anyone get out empty-handed -- make sure your trash leaves the car whenever you do. 

9. Set up an effective "office" space in your home. A home office isn't a luxury these days; it's just about a requirement. Offices can serve as the family computer center, a place to do paperwork, and the occasional work-at-home office.

10. Keep your house neat, and tidy up daily. Cleaning up doesn't require anything fancy. Just make sure everything's in or near when it should be, and regularly put things away so it's easier to maintain a peaceful, productive frame of mind.

If owning too much is a problem for you, get serious about de-cluttering your life. Otherwise all the clutter will weigh you down, putting pressure on your other pillars of productivity. Start organizing and thinning out your possessions a little bit at a time, and eventually you'll get there. You'll be amazed at how good you feel, and how much easier life will be, when all the junk's gone!

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, professional speaker, and author 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 company in Denver, Colorado, that caters to high-stress industries. Laura’s newest productivity book, The Exhaustion Cure (Broadway Books), hits bookstores in May 2008.  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, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and MolsonCoors.  Contact her at www.TheProductivityPro.com. 

Time management is dead: The new reality of productivity

We’ve all been there. There’s mail piled up on the corner of your desk. You have 37 unread e-mails. The phone is ringing (not that phone – the other phone). And you’ll be lucky if you can get through three of the fifteen items on your to-do list.

Oh – and you have four hours of meetings ahead of you.

It didn’t used to be this way. The world has changed in the last decade or so. Has your approach to time management changed with it?

If you find yourself stressed out and frustrated every time you try to hunker down and take control of your time, there’s a good chance that’s because you need a new way to think about time management. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to force yourself to work within a system that just isn’t compatible with the pace of your day or the nature of your work. Just like electronic organizers are perfect for some and others swear by paper planners, even the best time management system will fail if it doesn’t jive with the way you get through each day.

If you’re looking for a productivity system that is compatible with real life, consider 4-A Time Management. By focusing on four key elements of productivity you can create a flexible, customized productivity strategy that is compatible with the fast paced demands of today.

Activity. When there are 117 things that could be done next, how are we supposed to prioritize? In this new era of productivity, it is pretty much impossible to successfully schedule your day in advance. You might set out a clear list of objectives and a bulletproof timetable, but we all know that one unexpected phone call can cause the whole plan to collapse in on itself – priorities change, a crisis pops up, a deadline is moved up a week; these things happen.

Since you can’t plan for everything, it is important that you have a crystal clear understanding of what your priorities are. If something happens that is beyond your control and these priorities need to be adjusted – fine – but until then, you should have a game plan.

Evaluate your to-do list to see which tasks will yield the greatest benefit. The old A-B-C method probably won’t work if the flow of your day changes often. You need a new method of deciding where to spend your valuable time.

Think about the average amount of time that you can work uninterrupted. Which of your tasks will benefit most from that undivided attention? Which require a lot more or much less? Make a plan to work on the bigger, more time-intensive projects when you know you’re least likely to be disturbed. Save the little ones for those windows between meetings and phone calls when you won’t get much else done.

If one of your important projects is just too intimidating for you to ever make any headway, break it down into smaller, manageable steps. I guarantee that nine times out of ten, once you get started you’ll forget why you put it off for so long to begin with.

Availability. The best laid plans won’t stand a chance if you don’t find a way to control your availability. Your time is your most valuable asset. Don’t just give it away to anyone who asks! You’ll never have complete control over your availability, but it’s important to know how to carve out blocks of distraction-free time that is conducive to productivity.

Meetings are notorious for eating up massive blocks of time. Learn to say “no.” It’s pretty likely that you don’t need to be at all of the meetings that you’re attending. Can you send someone in your place? Ask for the minutes to be forwarded? Address the situation with a quick phone call? Evaluate whether the meetings you attend are really necessary.

When you’re not in those meetings, schedule time to work. In some jobs this is easier to do than others. It might just be a matter of shutting your office door and setting your phone to voicemail. Or working from home or heading to Starbucks with your laptop. You might need a clear signal for your co-workers, like using a do-not-disturb sign or putting on head phones when you need to work uninterrupted.

Whatever your solution – don’t abuse it. If you try to make yourself constantly unavailable, you will quickly find that others lose respect for your “I’m busy” signal.

Then you’re right back where you started, whether you’re up against an important deadline or not.

Accessibility. You’ve already decided that you aren’t going to give everyone around constant access to your time. The next step is to make sure that you have easy access to the information, tools, and resources you need to be productive.

Invest the time necessary to make sure the things you need on a regular basis are at your fingertips. Things you access frequently should be filed on your desktop in an organizer or in a drawer that’s at arm’s reach. Put the files you only use occasionally where they are accessible at your desk, but give the easiest access to those things that you reference regularly. Archive files you rarely need in the bottom drawers or in files away from your desk.

Perhaps the most important and overlooked thing you can do to get organized is to structure your electronic files. In an age where most files are electronic, it’s easy to lose them to the vacuum of cyber storage. File electronic documents similar to the way you would paper ones. Don’t just plop everything in “My Documents” or on your desktop and leave it for lost. Set up folders and sub folders that have intuitive titles that you’ll easily navigate. Use dates and enough detail in file names that you won’t have to open multiple documents when you’re looking for something specific. In short, do the initial work of saving the files in an organized manner to make referencing them an easy task.

Stopping to hunt for what you need not only wastes time, but it destroys your rhythm and forces you to break your concentration. It’s well worth it to organize as you go.

Attention. The most effective time management system in the world won’t do a thing to improve your productivity if you don’t focus on the task at hand. For many of us, the problem isn’t a lack of willpower; it’s having the restraint to refuse distractions.

This means closing Outlook when you’re not working on e-mail and trying to check it only a few times a day. Resist the urge to open messages as they come in. This also means letting the voicemail light stay on until you’ve finished what you’re doing. Treat your project time like an appointment with a coworker. Ignore the phone, the e-mail, and the urge to go get a cup of coffee.

Of course, avoiding email and the phone might be much easier than avoiding the distractions that come from coworkers. If you’ve already put your “do not disturb” signal in place, be it headphones or a closed office door, and you’re still being interrupted, it’s time to tactfully redirect the person distracting you.

Acknowledge the issue and let them know you’re in the thick of an important project. Ask if you may give them a call in an hour when they may have your undivided attention.

Just remember – it’s better to be like a postage stamp and stick with something all the way to the end than it is to be a butterfly that flits from task to task!

So forget managing your time – it can’t be managed. Manage yourself with these 4 A’s and you’ll increase the likelihood you’ll have a productive day.

Make it a productive day! ™

www.TheProductivityPro.com

Catalog Choice Lets You Decide What You Want to Receive

I like a new service by Catalog Choice, in which you decide which catalogs you want to receive.  When you receive a catalog you don't want, you enter it on your account and select "Decline Catalog."  They contact the merchant on your behalf and request that they no longer send you their catalog. Reduce the number of catalogs you receive in the mail!  One-stop-shop method keeps you from having to unsubscribe to each one individually---a real time saver!

How to Concentrate: Act Like a Postage Stamp and Stick To It!

Nowadays, so many things compete for your attention in the workplace that it can be hard to concentrate on what's important. If you need to improve your ability to stay on target and focus on the task at hand, implement the tips outlined below.

1. Set up your office for maximum productivity and minimum distractions. You need privacy to concentrate and discuss sensitive issues. Don't just take what you're given; reorganize it into a configuration that works best for you.

2. Avoid wasting time by daydreaming. Daydreaming can be a real productivity bandit -- but as long as you don't use it to procrastinate, it can be very helpful. Harness its creative powers, and use it for thinking time that can lead to productive ideas.

3. Remember things more easily. Busy people need good memory skills to help them remember details. Sharpening your memory can be as simple as using good memory tools: always writing things down, keeping running lists, leaving yourself voicemails, etc.

4. Focus on priority projects without getting distracted. Be like a postage stamp: stick to one thing until it gets to its intended destination. Learn to juggle multiple tasks and projects effectively, but don't flit around from one item to another without completing anything.

5. Focus on one thing at a time. Don't "multi-task" or attempt to do too many things at once. Start by focusing one on item instead. Don't interrupt yourself, and prioritize your tasks so you know what needs to be done first.

6. Make lists and record everything you need to do. To keep from dropping the ball, capture every thought using either paper or electronic methods. This pulls what you need to do out of your memory and relieves your brain of the burden of repeatedly thinking about everything you need to remember.

7. Read quickly and maintain concentration. Learn to benefit from new reading techniques designed to boost productivity, and toss whatever's boring or useless to you. Getting through your reading more quickly frees up time for other priorities.

8. Recognize signs of brain overload. If you have no idea what to do first or where to begin, learn how to get your mind focused again. For example, create structure and deadlines for your work, jealously guard your attention from distractions, or try some deep breathing exercises.

9. Get absorbed in a task. Become fully present-focused. Learn to "get in the zone" and achieve a state of momentum where time seems to fly. Start by mastering your job, ensure no interruptions, and always strive to be in the moment.

10. Concentrate on a task that bores you or doesn't really interest you. Even tedious tasks must be completed. Get them done early so the rest of the day is more enjoyable, reward yourself for getting the job done, and vary your activities.

You can't get your work done if you're distracted. Learn to trim away all the minor things competing for your attention, and fine-tune your concentration to a laser-like focus. You'll be surprised at how much you get done -- and how much time you'll have to spend on what's really important.

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, professional speaker, and author 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 company in Denver, Colorado, that caters to high-stress industries. Laura’s newest productivity book, The Exhaustion Cure (Broadway Books), hits bookstores in May 2008.  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, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and MolsonCoors.  Contact her at www.TheProductivityPro.com. 

Taming the Messy Monster: Bringing Order to Your World

Order relates to your level of organization: your ability to sort, filter, and process information effectively. It also involves your ability to find what you want when you want it, and how tidy your work area looks -- especially to the people who matter.  Here are a few ideas to help you control the paper, email, reading material, and inputs that flow into your office.

1. Realize that some people aren't born more organized than others. Understand that organization is a skill that can be learned, just like riding a bike. Getting organized is a process of trial, error and persistence, but you can master it if you're serious about it.

2. Keep a clutter-free work surface. You don't have to be creative and disorganized, if you're willing to learn and the pain is bad enough. No matter what you've seen on coffee cups, a clean desk is NOT a sign of an empty mind.

3. Know how to organize "pending" items requiring future action. Create a tickler file, an indispensable system that will remind you which papers require your action today, and allow you to forget the rest until their time has come.

4. Maintain orderly and organized files, so you can find essential information when you need it. If you've ever taken more than three minutes to find anything you need, then it's high time to reorganize.

5. Sort, process, and store incoming information quickly and easily. Every piece of paper, email, voicemail, and fax that you get is simply a piece of information. There are only six things that you can do with any piece of information: discard, delegate, do, date, drawer or delete (the 6-D system).

6. Discard information quickly and easily. Don't be a packrat. If you doubt you'll ever use or read something, don't be afraid to toss it.

7. Touch paper only once. Be very decisive, and have a home for each type of information. Sort it using the 6-D System, decide immediately where each item belongs, and put it away.

8. Avoid using sticky notes or scraps of paper to record messages or tasks. Temporary notes should be for temporary things, like writing down a number you'll use only once, or marking comments in a document. Consolidate your system using phone logs and organizers.

9. Know the contents of every cabinet, drawer, and storage space in your home and office. The only way to do this is to go through every item you own and give away, put away, toss, or store it. This is an effective way to "poison the packrat" and complete projects that have gone undone for too long.

10. Have a systematic plan to stay organized. Staying organized requires ongoing practice and planning. The most effective way to control clutter is to say no -- to new tasks, belongings, magazine subscriptions, whatever.

It's critical that you learn to organize everything associated with your work. Not only does a messy office make it more difficult to find what you need when you need it, it's a career deterrent: people with messy work areas are less likely to get promoted. Remember, perception is reality these days. Leave your office messy all the time, and your career may stall. And you still won't be able to find what you're looking for!

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, professional speaker, and author 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 company in Denver, Colorado, that caters to high-stress industries. Laura’s newest productivity book, The Exhaustion Cure (Broadway Books), hits bookstores in May 2008.  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, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and MolsonCoors.  Contact her at www.TheProductivityPro.com.