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

Getting Things Done: The Productivity Minute #21 Don't Get to it SOME day Do it NOW

Part of what keeps us stressed out is all of the incomplete tasks running around in our heads. Too many folks have loose ends and things they say they will "get to it some day." Stop saying "some day" and get those things done! (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. http://www.theproductivitypro.com

Time Management: The Productivity Minute #19: Business Processes That Make No Sense-United Airlines

Are your employees bogged down with business processes that make no sense? Laura gives an example of a United Airlines policy that not only inconveniences customers, but also wastes employee time. Eliminate business processes that don't make sense! (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

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.

How to Make the Most of 5:00-9:00 PM

Let’s forget about 9:00 to 5:00 for a minute. We spend lots of energy making sure that we are efficient and productive during the workday. But what about AFTER the workday? Do you find yourself keeping your nose to the grindstone and working diligently throughout the day only to have it all unravel when you step through the door at home? (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. www.TheProductivityPro.com

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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

Abandonment, outsourcing, discipline and other difficult productivity questions

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

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

Try these time management tips on for size.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Keep Up with Daily Responsibilities: Get Back to Your Post, Soldier!

In the military, your job or position is known as your Post. Even if you're not in the military, a well-defined Post is an important pillar of personal productivity. When you do your job well, other things in your life fall into place more smoothly. When this pillar is weak, your personal responsibilities seem to get in the way of life. Try these tips for defining and handling your life responsibilities.

1. Hire out tasks requiring a level of expertise you don't have. You don't have to do everything yourself, especially when there are people available who can do it better for a price. You can outsource just about anything these days.

2. Hire out simple chores to helpers. Most people don't have the time to work full-time and do all the housework too -- so don't hesitate to hire it out if you need to. In most cases, such services are worth far more to us than anything else we might have spent the money on.

3. Have goods delivered to avoid unnecessary time at the store. You can still get milk, groceries, and dry cleaning delivered in most areas, and online shopping for other things works great if you've got any mail service at all.

4. Complete shopping efficiently. Little things add up. Plan the most efficient route to get your shopping done, pick up your pace, create a shopping chart, buy in bulk, and don't try clothes on in the store. It's often more trouble than it's worth.

5. Run errands efficiently. Instead of trying to do it all on your day off, divide up your chores and do one or two every evening. If you can't, try to consolidate your errands so you can get them done with the minimum of fuss, or take care of a particular errand whenever you happen to drive by on the way to somewhere else.

6. Function effectively as the social, child, and family coordinator. Be sure to plan time with your friends and extended family, and coordinate your social activities, because your significant other (especially if he's a guy) might not.

7. Do routine chores on a regular basis. Be sure to keep up with all the boring tasks that keep your household humming along smoothly. For example, keep your house clean, mow the lawn, pay your bills, or do whatever your Post requires.

8. Conduct preventive maintenance on your home. It may not be required every day, but preventative maintenance will help keep your life together. Keep an eye on your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and laundry room especially, and make sure certain items get fixed or replaced regularly.

9. Prepare meals quickly and systematically. Take advantage of meal plans, cooking services, and school lunch programs to cut down on the time you have to spend in the kitchen.

10. Expect family members to do their fair share of the housework. To protect your sanity, it's imperative to develop an understanding with your partner and kids about how you'll divide household chores. Emphasize fairness and responsibility.

You may not be in the military, but you have your own well-defined Post and set of responsibilities, both inside and outside the home. So should everyone else in your family, right down to the youngest kid. If you and yours can't do it all, don't hesitate to hire people to help. Letting day-to-day tasks, chores, errands, and responsibilities overwhelm you is the first step on the path to the loony bin.

© 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. 

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.