Why won't they stop???

This recent post from Unclutterer is so relevant for me at the moment and I am sure many of my readers will find it interesting too. Here are 9 tips that may help you to stay on top of the plethora of emails that don’t stop when you are travelling:

1. Tie yourself to a smartphone. If you want to stay on top of email, you have to keep a smartphone on you. Keep the ringer off and the message alerts set to vibrate.
2. Enable automatic sorting and color coding in your smartphone’s email program. Have a filter that automatically routes all messages out of your inbox and into separate folders where you are copied instead of listed as the main recipient, all newsletters or read-only emails you subscribe to, and all emails from sources you know are not going to be must-respond-now messages. Have your system color code messages from your boss and/or other very important folks so these messages will catch your attention when they come into your main inbox. (If you’re on a Windows-based phone, there are macros and add-ins for Outlook you can install. If you can legally route your work email through Gmail, you can also do this. I was unable to find an app for the iPhone that enables these features.)
3. Check messages during lulls in your schedule. As you wait in the line at the airport, switch between sessions at a conference, or grab a snack, process your priority emails then.
4. Only check work email. If someone needs to contact you about an important personal matter, he/she will text or call you. Check your personal email account on weekends or after you get home from traveling.
5. Only respond to items that can be handled in less than one minute. Delegate as much as possible, delete or archive anything that doesn’t need a response, and only send short messages of less than a paragraph to the priority emails you respond to.
6. Manage expectations. Have an automated out-of-office message enabled on your account that says you will have limited access to emails and no one should expect a response until you are back in the office (be sure to list that specific date). Provide detailed contact information for someone in the office who may be able to handle emergencies, and give that person in the office your cell number so he/she can call you if there is a major event. Also, let your office contact know when you expect to be on flights and/or completely out of connection.
7. Manage more expectations. When you reply to someone from your smartphone, have a “Sent from mobile device, please excuse typos and brevity” signature on the bottom of every message. You might also want to consider posting your return date on your out-of-office message as the day after you return so you have a full day to gather your bearings once you’re back in the office. Under promise, over deliver.
8. Have access to cloud file storage. Not all smartphones allow you to attach documents, so you’ll need to be able to send links to documents stored online with services like Dropbox. If your employer doesn’t allow file posting online and attaching documents to emails is essential to your job, you’ll want to get the smallest, lightest laptop you can because you’re going to have to carry it with you instead of a smartphone.
9. Work on email every night when you get to your hotel room. It will add to your workday, but taking 30 minutes or an hour every night to process the entirety of all your email inboxes and folders will guarantee you don’t have an avalanche of messages when you get back to your office.

Read more here: http://unclutterer.com/2012/04/03/how-to-manage-email-when-traveling-for-work/

Sing it with me "only 4 more weeks til Christmas..."

Although it isn’t even December as yet, you can feel it in the air – the silly season is coming! Parties, holidays, shopping, decorating – this is the time of year when our minds are thinking of everything else – except work!

Here are some fab tasks from Unclutterer.com that will help to get you through these last weeks before you can indulge and have some well earned rest.

1. File. Put on headphones (if they are acceptable in your workplace), and start putting papers away where they belong. If all your papers are filed, review your files to make sure you’re not keeping any information that doesn’t need to be archived. Organize your papers so that they help you do your job.
2. Review your bulletin board. How recent are all those items hanging on the walls of your cubicle or bulletin board? Can you easily see all of the most vital information? Is the calendar from two years ago? Is there anything that can come down or be replaced?
3. Clean your phone and work surface. When was the last time you scrubbed either? The dust bunnies behind your monitor aren’t going to clean themselves.
4. Enter information off business cards. If you’ve recently acquired business cards from important contacts, enter the data into your address book.
5. Backup your computer. If it’s not doneautomatically, now is a great time to backup the information off your computer’s hard drive. Be sure to follow your employer’s system for doing this task.
6. Unclutter your bookshelves. Do you have any out-dated manuals or irrelevant reading materials taking up space on your bookshelves? Now is a great time to recycle, shred, or remove these items from your office.
7. Equipment check. Are you using all of your equipment in your office? Is it in its best possible shape? Could you benefit more by knowing how to better operate the equipment you do have? Make a request to have the item serviced or take the time to read the operator’s manual or get rid of anything you don’t use.
8. Restock. Do you need more tape, more pens, more notepads, or any more office supplies? Go “shopping” in the supply closet if you do

To read more go here: http://unclutterer.com/2011/11/21/have-vacation-brain-at-work-try-some-of-these-mindless-but-productive-activities/

OK... synchronise calendars NOW!

Having just spent over three hours with my accountant discussing my growing business, it occured to me that being organised in my procedures and systems is such a big part of why my business can grow easily (my accountant is very happy with my extremely organised financial system – even though I hate figures!)

Being part of a large corporate organisation with many team members (like I used to be in my previous life), having organised systems in place is also an essential ingredient to a smooth flowing workplace and could mean the difference between keeping a client – or keeping your job!

Erin from Uncluttered.com wrote on this very thing back in 2008:

In today’s economy, employees can’t afford to be disorganized.

It’s no longer a matter of personality, it’s a matter of keeping one’s job and retaining or obtaining clients. If an employer is trying to decide whom to layoff and whom to keep, the most organized, profitable, and productive workers usually get to keep their jobs.

Workers who consistently miss deadlines, run projects over budget, and upset clients and vendors with their inconsiderate behavior are the people who are let go. Additionally, current and potential clients won’t do business with your company if they don’t receive the product they expect on time and on budget.

If you’re worried about the level of disorganization in your work, here are a few items that may help you:

• Clear the paper clutter from your office
• Start using project management and goal systems to help organize your work load
• Set alarms in Outlook or other calendars to keep you on schedule
• Learn how to run efficient meetings
• Work on managing expectations for deadlines and deliverables through ongoing communication with the client or your manager

What are your favorite ways to stay organised at work?

To read more: http://unclutterer.com/2008/10/24/being-an-organized-worker-is-essential-in-todays-market/

Hello chief?

We are all guilty of it – spending too long on the phone and then when we hang up, we realise we don’t have the information that we called for in the first place!

The following are suggestions for how to use the phone in an organised way during those times when you need to rely on it from Unclutter.com:

1. Create talking points.

Before you make a call, jot down notes about what you need to cover in your discussion. This is especially important before conference calls. Like with meetings, you should never make a call without knowing how you want the conversation to end. If you can’t construct a purpose statement before dialing, don’t dial.

2. Set a timer. Whenever you call someone, you’re interrupting whatever it was the person was doing before you called. Be respectful of this and make the call as brief as possible. When someone calls you, be up front about how much time you have to be on the phone. Most phone calls should begin as follows: You: “Hello, this is NAME.” Caller: “Hello, this is NAME. How are you?” You: “I’m great. I’ve got X minutes to talk, what can I help you with?” If the person on the other end of the line needs to talk to you for more than the number of minutes you said, then he or she can schedule a block of time to talk with you in the future. You: “Hey, can we talk this afternoon at three? I don’t have any afternoon appointments scheduled.”
3. Use a headset if you’re on the phone for more than half an hour a day. From an ergonomic perspective, your neck shouldn’t be cramped for extended periods of time. Plus, your hands will be free to do mindless tasks while you’re on your call — filing papers, putting paper clips away in your drawer, etc. If you’re going to be making a lot of noise, though, be sure to hit the mute button so that you don’t disrupt the other people on the call.
4. Don’t call people and ask whether they received your e-mail. If you are worried someone didn’t receive your initial e-mail, just resend it with a note and the whole content of your previous message. Ask for a confirmation of receipt if you’re afraid the e-mails aren’t arriving. Not everyone checks their e-mail on your schedule, so don’t disrupt them further by calling.
5. Use the do-not-disturb button. Just because you’re sitting at your desk doesn’t mean that you have to answer the phone. If you need to concentrate intently on work, hit the do-not-disturb button and let all calls go to voicemail for that period of time. You shouldn’t leave the button on all the time, because this practice will reflect poorly on you in the workplace. However, doing it from time to time can significantly improve your productivity.
6. Designate a time to return calls. I like to return phone calls from twelve thirty to one in the afternoon, after lunch, when my energy level is low. I get a boost from the people I’m talking to, and it’s a time when most everyone across the U.S. is at work (twelve thirty PM East Coast time is nine thirty AM on the West Coast).

To read more go to: http://unclutterer.com/2010/07/21/excerpt-six-tips-for-organizing-your-time-spent-on-the-telephone/

My calculator is in here somewhere...

It doesn’t matter how organised you are (and I consider myself pretty organised considering I am a professional organiser), your desk drawer reflects your state of busy-ness. The busier you are the messier it will be. If only we had plenty of time to rearrange our post-it notes and highlighters.

Here is a strategy from Unclutterer.com for helping you curb the clutter from your desk drawer (which incidentally can also be used for the utensils drawer in the kitchen or toiletries cupboard in the bathroom):

• Take all of the supplies out of the drawer and put them in a small box.
• Clean out your desk organizer and the drawer.
• Go about your work.
• When you need an item, take it out of the box, use it, and then put it away in the top desk drawer.
• After five days have passed, review the items that made it into the top desk drawer and make sure that they are organized in the best way for your needs.
• The items that remain in the box on your desk do not belong in the prime real estate of your top desk drawer.
• Sort through the items and toss out, recycle, or pass along to a co-worker anything that is pure clutter in your desk.
• Find a shelf or lower drawer where the items you need but use less frequently can be stored.

Another top desk drawer organizing idea: While on your next phone call, give all of your pens a test drive to make sure that they work.

Read some other great suggestions from readers here: http://unclutterer.com/2011/03/21/bringing-order-to-your-top-desk-drawer/

Oh I do love to be beside the sea-side

It is the middle of summer here in Australia; hard to believe when you see New York City under 12 inches of snow.

But with the heat and humidity of summer comes the lethargic feelings and thoughts of lazing on the beach or out enjoying an el fresco lunch with friends – rather than putting in a productive day at work.

So…what to do?

To survive these beautiful days cooped up inside, try to do the following things every day:

• As the shine comes up earlier, get to your desk earlier.  Try to get as much work done as possible before other people start working.  Most people have more energy earlier in the day than later, so while the phone isn’t ringing and no one is sending you emails you can get more done. And it will keep you from feeling guilty when you zone out around 3:00 in the afternoon.
• Do a lot of positive self-talking. Get your stuff done so you can go out and do something outside. The longer you procrastinate about your work the less time you’ll have for whatever else it is you want to do.
• Have a plan for what needs to be done that day and schedule hard to do, thought-intensive items for early in the day and more mindless stuff for the afternoon.
• Avoid heavy lunches; if the meal is hard to digest, it can put you to sleep in the afternoon but lighter lunches don’t seem to have such a drastic effect (apart from the 2pm energy lull!)

For more on the topic, go to: http://unclutterer.com/2010/07/15/fighting-the-summer-productivity-blahs/

Waving opportunity my way on The Today Show

The Queensland floods have been a devastating event, yet as with any major setback or roadblock, there is always opportunity. Getting the state back on its feet takes the expertise of many and sharing this expertise via the media is a big help to many who don’t know what to do.

And this is how my opportunity came from left field – appearing on the Today Show showing flood affected people how to salvage their damaged furniture. I didn’t see it coming, but I jumped straight up and grabbed hold – I didn’t want to let this fantastic PR opportunity pass me by.

In my email in box this morning was another excerpt from a book called Money, Meaning & Beyond by Andrea J. Lee talking on this very thing so I wanted to share it with you all:

In any given business, the growth of the business will rise or fall to the level of the business owner’s personal development.

I see it frequently.

When people grow, their business grows. When people don’t, their businesses don’t.  and sometimes, when businesses get inherited or acquired, the business will show a spurt or dive, based on the ethos of the new owner.

When opportunity knocks, are you ready?

If you knew you could have everything you wanted right now, would you know what to say?

Are you – your character, your development, your greater Self – ready?

Here are some things to really embrace as you go about life in the next thirty days:

• Saying NO to bland. Stand for something.
  
• Cultivating a vision. Get clear about what you believe and mean it.  Lead.
  
• Conditioning yourself emotionally. You and your business will weather many ups and downs.
• Nurture your strength of spirit just like you work out your body for the great race.
• Articulate what you want and why. Don’t worry about how just yet.
• Being prepared to say a resounding ‘yes’ to help that wants to find you, and that many times, is sitting right on your doorstep.

Be diligent and unflinching about yourself and your growth.  Start now in whatever shape or form that looks like to you.

Your success (financial and other) as a business owner is DIRECTLY linked to your ability to evolve yourself.

To find out more go here: http://www.andreajlee.com/blog/archives/2011/01/19/feature-article-the-paul-principle-for-better-or-worse-it%E2%80%99s-all-about-you-excerpted-from-the-money-meaning-and-beyond-book-chapter-26/

But in the instant that I realised my blog was down, my mood plummeted, I was short and snappy with people, I couldn’t concentrate on anything, I didn’t even want to leave my desk to go to the loo until I had resolved it (with the help of a techie in Asia somewhere!)

This made me think, why do we allow our laptops to rule our lives to the extent that we treat the “living” things in our world as second rate citizens? How many times has the dog not gone for a walk because you were working on your website? How many meals have you forgone because you were watching webinars or reading articles on how to improve your life? What other areas of you life have been put on hold or forgotten about because your eyes were glued to the screen and your fingers to the keyboard?

Uncorking new opportunities!

This year, I aim to take a stand against the time I spend on my laptop and not with the people I love. No more “are you coming to bed now?” as I slave away until the wee small hours. No more Saturday mornings or Sunday evenings tapping away when I could be sitting on the verandah with my husband watching the sun go down with some wine and cheese.

In fact, I am going to start right now since the sun is going down. Well, right after I post this blog of course.  Now…where is that bottle opener?

The month of December is a notoriously unproductive time of the work year. Clients, vendors, and co-workers are off on vacations, attending holiday parties, or perpetually snacking on cookies and flavored popcorn in the office kitchen. Getting someone to weigh in on a decision or to complete his portion of a project can be — or at least seem like — an impossible task.

To reduce your frustrations and keep the proverbial ball rolling, try these techniques for managing your workflow during this hectic month:

• Communicate. Find out exactly when your clients, vendors, bosses, and co-workers will be available and in their respective offices. Mark this information on your calendar, and remember that many people mentally check out the day before they leave on vacation.
• Manage expectations. Let everyone you’re responsible to know when you will be in the office. Additionally, regularly update people of your work progress so they can better manage their time. If you fall behind on a project, let people expecting work from you know as quickly as possible.
• Set small deadlines. Now is not the time of year to take on the Next Big Thing. As much as you can manage, set small, achievable deadlines and save the larger projects for the spring.
• Set realistic deadlines. Double or triple your expected work times. If it usually takes you three hours to write a weekly report, give yourself six hours — especially if other people are involved in reviewing your work.

To read more go to: http://unclutterer.com/2010/11/29/managing-your-workflow-in-december/

Hey. You. Yes, you! Come over here. I’m going to tell you a secret. OK, well, it’s not really a secret. It’s more of a question. A most important question. One that, when asked, can provide a wealth of productive power…

“Where does this belong?”

Want to know how to organize a messy desk? Take everything off, put it in a box, then take each item out, and ask that question.

For some items, the answer is obvious. For other items, maybe they don’t have a place – find one. Maybe the answer is not “on the desk” or even “in the room”. Maybe the answer is not even “in the house” or “in my life”.

Answering this question can not only make the clean up quick but also ensure quick work when things get out of control again. Because, everything belongs somewhere and now you know where that somewhere is.

The thing is, this question works with more than just clutter.

Want to make your task list more powerful? Ask that question of each task. Sometimes the answer is “as an immediate action”. Sometimes the answer is “on a context specific list” or “broken into smaller chunks”. Sometimes, the answer is “as part of a greater project or goal”. But, sometimes, the answer is “with someone else” or “done at some future date” or “not done at all”.

Want to get your email inbox under control? Never look at another message without asking the question. Does it belong in the inbox now that you have looked at it? No? Perhaps in a separate folder of things you need to take action on or respond to. Perhaps in a folder for reference on a project you are working on. Perhaps read and archived. Perhaps in the trash.

But, where the question becomes truly powerful, is when you apply the question to everything. Because if something does not have a place in your home, in your relationships, in your job, or or in your life, perhaps it should not be there.