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

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.

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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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

Protecting your calendar from others: managing availability

While working with Teresa Gavigan, one of my clients, on her office organization, we talked about the challenge she was having with an overly booked calendar and what to do about it.  She had recently taken over another entire division and was splitting her time between the two groups, which were in two different buildings.  She had ceded her calendar over to her assistant but hadn’t set any boundaries around what meetings to accept and what to decline.  Her assistant was accepting meetings tentatively, which resulted in Teresa often being double and triple booked.  She told me she frequently felt like she was “having a Lucy Ricardo moment” as she dashed over to one meeting, then over to the next, then back to the other, never wanting to let one or the other down. 

After months of running around harried, she decided that was enough, she was the boss, and she didn’t have to be everywhere and be available at everyone’s beck and call.  She decided to reduce the number of meetings she attended by delegating attendance at some and declining others.  She scheduled a regular staff meeting every other week with one group not to exceed one hour and a monthly conference call with the second.  To make up for the reduced group meeting time, she schedules monthly meeting with each of her direct reports to discuss planning items.  All staff members can email or phone her with more immediate concerns.  Additionally, she has a 30-minute “innovation” meeting once a month to discuss a specific topic of future interest to the organization that everyone comes prepared to discuss.  With the boundaries she’s placed on her schedule, the regularly scheduled staff meetings and individual meetings, she feels much more in control and less like a “Lucy.”  What have you done to regain control of your availability?

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. 

Do You Work to Live or Live to Work?

Workplace balance is tough to achieve, because most employees have a real commitment to both their jobs and to their families. They love their work lives and their personal lives, often with equal vigor, and don't want to give up either. But many professionals find it difficult to participate fully in one area without sacrificing the other.  If you have trouble with your personal/professional equilibrium, then these ten tips are for you.

1. Allocate time according to your values and the top priorities in your life. Assess whether you're spending your time in ways consistent with what's important to you. Other people should be able to look at your life, observe what you do, and tell what you value.

2. Achieve your ideal life balance. This is one place in life where you shouldn't accept "close enough." If tomorrow were D-day, what would you regret not having done? What fulfils you emotionally, psychologically, physically?

3. Set appropriate boundaries and stick to your guns. Learning to set boundaries is critical if you want to increase your personal productivity. Setting limits is a way of defining who you are and what you're all about; what you will do and what you won't; what's acceptable to you and what's not.

4. Stop thinking about work at the end of the day and enjoy your personal time. Do your best to get everything done by the end of the day, but if you can't, draw a line in the sand. Don't apologize for making a clear distinction between work and personal time.

5. Ask for help when you need it. You can't do it all. Surround yourself with a good team, so you can draw upon their resources when you encounter trouble.

6. Create rituals and fond memories with your family. Connect with those you love during family trips and events, and use those experiences to reconnect during stressful times. Remember: quality time trumps quantity.

7. Spend appropriate amounts of time with electronic pursuits. Don't go overboard watching television, playing video games, or surfing the Internet, especially when you've got a family to enjoy. Set yourself some reasonable limits.

8. Turn off the technology when you're with family or on personal time. Instead of letting laptops, PDAs, pagers, and phones take over your life, turn them off and be fully present when you need to be.

9. Take full advantage of company wellness and family balance programs.  You'll be more productive when you don't have to worry about the health of your family, which is exactly why most companies offer these programs.

10. Consistently leave work on time. Commit to getting out the door on time. Ignore informal rules that make no sense, start meetings well before quitting time, and be assertive about your need to leave at a reasonable hour. Start small if necessary.

You can't devote 100% of your energy to your job, no matter how much you try -- or how much your boss would like you to. To be a complete, well-rounded human being, you need to focus some of your attention on other things that are important to you: your family, your religion, your hobbies, and especially your core values. Otherwise one of these days you're likely to look up and wonder who you are, and how you got there -- and why it's so lonely.

© 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 the Boss? You or Your Blackberry?

Technology is both a blessing and a curse. It can definitely improve your productivity, but having to deal with email, voicemail, the Internet, Blackberries, PDAs, cell phones, and pagers can make you less productive if you're not careful. Here are a few suggestions on how tame your technology .

1. Try to reduce "information overload."  Understand that you can have too much information, and find a way to get rid of the excess. Get off mailing lists, learn computer shortcuts, narrow your web searches, cancel subscriptions, and use filtering rules to reduce electronic junk.

2. Use proper netiquette. Among other things, DON'T SHOUT, don't be sloppy, and keep your messages brief and to the point. Make it easy for other people to respond, and most importantly, don't waste their time with your email use.

3. Leave effective voicemail messages. Plan your messages ahead of time, and make them brief. Don't mumble, don't ramble, watch your tone, and leave more than just your name and number. Above all, avoid playing telephone tag.

4. Use your phone as an effective productivity tool. Unless you've got a pressing deadline, pick up the phone when it rings and take care of the issue right then. Get to the point quickly, and stay focused. Plus, use a wireless handset -- it lets you handle phone calls anywhere in your home or office.

5. Keep your computer files well organized, so you can find them easily. Use directories and subdirectories effectively, give your project files logical, easy-to- remember names, and always save them where they're supposed to go.

6. Know the available productivity features of your email program. Keep your inbox clean by reading, replying, and deleting every email ASAP, if possible; otherwise, organize and store important emails in logically-named folders. Learn to use your email program's Calendar feature, too.

7. Run regular maintenance routines on your computer. This will ensure high performance and help protect your data. Do regular system scans with antivirus software, run complete backups regularly, and purge your old files frequently.

8. Understand the features and purposes of electronic and paper systems. Decide which systems work best for you in specific circumstances, and know when to use each.

9. Eliminate email spam. Use pop-up blockers and email filters, and don't read or reply to spam at all. If you need to provide personal information online, use an email address you signed up for using fake information.

10. Remember that you control your technology; it doesn't control you. The most useful tool on your phone, computer, Blackberry, PDA or pager is the OFF button. Do you even know where it is? Remember that you can turn your technology off, and you can respond to it when you're ready -- not when everyone thinks you should.

It's amazing how useful technological tools can be -- but it's equally amazing just how distracting they can be, especially when they're not properly used. Instead of responding mindlessly to that hunk of plastic and electronics when it bleeps at you, learn to put it to work for you in an effective and organized manner. Understand what to avoid, what to take advantage of, and just as importantly, where the OFF button is -- and how use it.

© 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. 

It's About Time

Its About Time

Pareto is very busy in the sales world.  You know the 80-20 rule.  In this case, it means that only 20% of salespeople spend 80% of their time on selling activities.  Are you in this group?  See if you recognize yourself.  If not, here’s how you can join the group.      

Put your fingers on it fast.  Laura Stack is a professional speaker and author of Leave the Office Earlier® and Find More Time.  She sees several time wasters that cost salespeople valuable selling time.  One of the biggest time wasters is lacking a system to track client history.  The system should include notes on conversations that took place, with whom, and when they took place.  Stack says, “To be truly organized you should be able to have a prospect call you out of the blue and you should be able to immediately refer back to a conversation that took place years ago.”  Without the system, you can’t be effective. You may even frustrate clients who have to repeat themselves and might have to rely on facts that aren’t correct.   Stack uses ACT! to take notes while talking with clients on the phone.  Many salespeople are unaware that Outlook can be used to track history.  The journal feature allows you to take notes and attach those notes to the contact.  Stack adds that you can use a manual folder system if you prefer. What is essential is to have a system to aggregate and retrieve client history. 

There’s an unexpected time waster—the BlackBerry.  It’s hard to use one for taking notes because you can’t type that fast.  Stack sees salespeople taking notes on scraps of paper, place mats and even their hands. That haphazard system makes them more disorganized.  She suggests, “Understand the features and benefits and decide if it’s for you.”  It’s important once you do take notes to enter them into your system as soon as possible so they don’t pile up.

Get to work fast.  Another time waster is when salespeople lack a plan or poorly plan their daily activities.  It starts by having a system to schedule follow up tasks like telephone calls.  If you tell a customer you will call in two weeks, you must follow through.  Some salespeople think they can remember everything they promise. That’s far too taxing. Instead, a technology supplied or manual system works well to keep your promises.  She says, “People will work with someone who is reliable more than someone they like.”  Some inefficient salespeople begin each day thinking, “Who am I supposed to call today?”  Stack says that when you come to work each day you should already know whom you’re supposed to call and what you’re supposed to do.  If you work in inside sales, your planning can be the last task of the previous day.  If you do a lot of driving, a week out is sufficient and more time is required for air travelers.  In addition, at the beginning of each month Stack recommends reviewing activities for the coming month.

Work on selling.  Stack sees many salespeople wasting time on activities that take them away from selling. One activity is constant email checking which she suggests reducing to once per day. She sees salespeople who take notes on spiral notebooks only to waste time flipping back through the notebooks to locate a particular piece of customer information.  She often hears complaints about completing reports that are time wasters. Yet when she asks, “What have you done about it?” she often gets the response, “Nothing.”  Stack reports, “If leadership knew, they would care as it’s directly impacting the profitability of the sales force.” 

You may think you don’t have time to plan your selling.  You really do.  Stack says, “Organization is an enabler. Once it’s in place, it allows you to make more sales. It’s a launching pad to reach more sales revenue.”  Sounds like it’s time to take the leap and join the 20% that are selling more effectively. 

Maura Schreier-Fleming works with business and sales professionals on skills and strategies so they can sell more and be more productive at work.  She is the author of Real-World Selling for Out-of-this-World Results which is available at www.BestatSelling.com.  She founded her company Best@Selling in 1997.  You can reach her at 972.380.0200 or info@Bestatsellling.com. 

Lean and Mean in 2008: Go on a Low-Information Diet

Pretty much anybody you ask will tell you they’re pressed for time. There just aren’t enough hours to get it all done, yadda yadda yadda.  So we prioritize, streamline, and simplify.  You can improve your efficiency until you’re blue in the face, not to mention very tightly wound, but you still aren’t addressing one of the biggest time and energy wasters in your day: incoming information.  As my 12-year-old daughter, Meagan, would text on her phone: “TMI” (translation: Too Much Information).

If the 21st century has brought us anything, it is WAY too much information. You can watch several channels full of cable news 24 hours a day. You can surf the internet on any topic until you can’t see straight. Most people could heat their home with the amount of junk mail they receive on a continuous basis.  Imagine the time and productivity lost just sorting though it all!

So why not join me in 2008 and put yourself on a low-information diet? Make this the year that you say “NO MORE!” to the endless onslaught of time-wasting, productivity-eating, stress-inducing STUFF coming at you.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Skip the news. I haven’t regularly watched the news or read a newspaper in fifteen years. Some people are shocked when they hear me say that.  But I’m shocked when people confess how much time they waste each day reading their latest blog postings.  Think about what you really gain by being a news junkie.  To be honest, most of the news out there just isn’t the kind of thing that really impacts my family, my business, or me. And quite frankly, a big chunk of what gets reported will do little more than make me feel angry or even depressed.  So if your job or your natural sense of curiosity don’t prohibit it, consider a very low-news diet. Believe me: my selective ignorance has never caused me a single problem and allows me to focus my energy and attention.

Never meet in person to give information. What’s the number one complaint most people have when it comes to office productivity? Meetings!  Why do we do it to ourselves?  Do we really leave with the decisions that made spending the time worthwhile?  Or are we just regurgitating information that’s already been provided elsewhere?  Does the speaker stand there and read the PowerPoint slides he just emailed to you?  Hello?  If you already have the slides—you could have just read them yourself.  Phone conferences are even worse: they take much longer than an in-person meeting, because participants are checking email and fiddling with their computers.  Create a pact with your team members or department mates to never again have an in-person meeting or phone conference where you are simply conveying information.  Put it on the intranet or compile it into a single email that goes out once a week.  Keep the high cost of the in-person meeting at ebay when the purpose is a simple transfer of low-value information.

Use the phone strategically.  What about meetings with people outside of your office—vendors and clients, for example?  How many times have you spent weeks trying to set up an appointment, only to have it rescheduled at the last minute? Once the meeting actually happens, it costs you a huge piece of your day. If you have a thirty minute meeting that requires an hour’s worth of driving, decide if the time would be better spent with a phone call. Are you really getting better information in person?  Nine times out of ten these meetings could be handled in a tiny fraction of the time, if only they were replaced with a quick phone call. Skip the commute, keep the gas money, and save yourself a ton of time. You may even find that your clients view your respect for THEIR time as refreshing and will appreciate it to no end.

The Mailman Knocks One Hundred Times. The U.S Postal Service does not come running to your home, ring your bell, and hand you one piece of mail at a time, multiple times a day.  It’s batched and delivered once.  If only we could follow the same principle with electronic mail.  I’m not recommending you only check your in-box once a day—I believe that’s unrealistic—but you should still try to cut down.  You can’t focus on a task requiring concentration with your in-box open.  I process my e-mail just a handful of times each day. It’s easy to be in the habit of checking the instant you hear that little ding, but think about what you’re doing to yourself.  What percentage of incoming email is important?  10 percent?  25 percent?  Two percent?  If the majority of incoming email is unimportant and represents information you don’t need (there are donuts in the cafeteria), why would you stop working on the most important task of the day to see if one makes the cut?  You’re letting everyone else dictate your day to you by immediately stopping your productive work and redirecting your attention to an e-mail that is probably not that important anyway.  Then you need to refocus your attention and try to get back on track with whatever you were doing.  After the 50-200 emails you receive each day, just think how many times per hour your productive activities must come to a grinding halt.  Maybe—just maybe—you’re doing it, on purpose, as an excuse to NOT to have to do the hard work you should be doing.

Make the decision NOW.  Many decisions are put off because people are waiting for more information.  How much do you need?  Sometimes enough is good enough.  You will never be able to analyze all the in’s and out’s of every decision, and there will always be more information out there you didn’t consider.  Gather enough information and make the best decision you can with the information you have.  Things can always change.  My father always told me to take initiative and ask forgiveness, not permission.  In the early days of my career, I just handled things for my managers without asking.  If they were gone, I answered for them.  Sometimes it was the wrong answer to be sure, but I’ve always been praised for trying to save my boss some time and force some movement, rather than being berated for the wrong action.  I wish more people would just get some brass and DECIDE.  Stop getting approvals from a million people to cover your backside.  You’re making everyone around you crazy.  Sometimes it is much more efficient to go with the information you have, make the WRONG decision, and make adjustments if necessary, than to waste time being indecisive.

Empower your people. Eric Hoffer, the late American social philosopher, once said, “Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.” My husband and COO, John, has asked me several times if I’d like to learn to use the postage machine in our office.  I’ve always staunchly declined.  I have absolutely no desire to learn how to use it.  I enjoy being purposefully ignorant about that machine, since I have no business running it.  When my assistant, Lisa (who sits near me by design), casually asks me a question on the postal machine, I can honestly say, “I have no idea.  You’ll have to get with someone else.”  My staff needs to learn to be problem solving people and handle challenges they experience in the areas they’ve been charged to run, just as I do.  They can’t handle my areas of responsibility, and I refuse to handle theirs—and I unabashedly hold them accountable for their own results.  I’m happy to get them training or pay for assistance, but you should never do those things personally that can be done by someone else at a lower pay level.  You’ll kill yourself.  Give your people the authority they need to make decisions and get things done. If you don’t, you’ll find they consistently create more work for you, not less.

Cut, cut, cut.  Don’t lose your focus as the year goes on.  Cut, streamline, and reduce.  Cancel magazine subscriptions.  Get rid of the junk you haven’t used in a year.  Let all calls you don’t recognize go to voicemail.  Unsubscribe from all newsletters you haven’t specifically requested.  Go out and find things you determine you need to buy, rather than having salespeople feed you information about more things you’ll buy but won’t use.  If your clients keep asking you for the same information over and over again, put it on your website and let new clients know in advance where to find it.  These are just a few examples about how you can deal with less information.  Hope you lose lots of weight on your low-information diet and make 2008…GREAT!

Make it a productive day! ™

Get out of your meeting---make your cell phone ring

This is hysterical.  Have you ever been sitting in a boring meeting, wishing you had a reason to excuse yourself?  Or on a disasterous blind date, looking for an escape?  Before a potentially draining engagement, visit PopularityDialer.com.  Schedule a free call to your cell phone at a designated time and specify a conversation: boss, cousin in need, friend, etc.  The recording actually pauses for your end of the conversation.  You'll be out of there in no time.

Eliminate interruptions for better concentration

Interruptions abound—a co-worker drops by to chat, the phone rings, and your boss sends you an email to handle something, pronto—all at the same time.  With a flurry of activity, you respond to these various demands.  All prove to be low priority, and an hour later, you return to your initial task, your energy waning.  You decide you’ll work on the project in the afternoon, when your energy picks up again.  Of course, after lunch, there’s some crisis, and after fielding a volley of phone calls and unscheduled visits from co-workers, the day ends, and the project is yet again unfinished. 

You’ve lost your momentum.  Much like your car has to work harder to accelerate from a complete stop, so does your brain.  Although interruptions are a normal (and sometimes desirable) part of our work experience, there are times when it’s helpful to defend against them.

So try to eliminate distractions when you need to concentrate on a difficult task.  It's hard to get much done when someone or something is bugging you. It's a major problem in most offices, particularly in those with open-plan architecture. If people aren't talking or walking around, they're coming directly to you to chit-chat. If they don't come personally, they call you or send you email. This is fine for occasional socializing or if you're working with someone on something, but at times it might be necessary to set limits on the chatting. This isn't much of a problem when you have your own office; you can shut the door, and even lock it if necessary. If you're stuck in a cubicle, however, there's not much you can do to stop people from coming by, or even from parking themselves outside your cubicle and holding a long discussion with someone else. Try slipping on some noise canceling headphones to drown out the antics of passersby or your neighbor. People are less likely to interrupt you when you’re wearing a headset.  I’m not sure why this is but it’s true.  Just don’t get any eye contact. This can create a little privacy without seeming too unfriendly. Similarly, you can send your calls to voicemail and close your email program to give yourself some time to focus without getting distracted.