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Posts tagged productivity
Five Simple Yet Effective Tips for Managing Your Email
Mar 12th
Everyone nowadays gets way too many emails and spends too much time dealing with them. If you feel like you are wasting too much time on email, you need re-evaluate how you manage it. Here are five simple tips to help you regain control over your inbox so you can do more important (and fun) things.
1. Keep it under six sentences
Nobody likes to read long emails. As more people are checking their emails on their phones and tablets, you need to be succinct with what you write.
Try to keep it brief by using no more than six sentences. This will force you to get to the point. If you need more sentences – consider calling the person or having a face-to-face meeting to communicate your thoughts.
2. Make it second priority
Don’t be a slave to your inbox. If you are, someone else has power of how effective your days are and that’s a recipe for disaster. The issue with people treating their inbox as their to-do list is that external people have direct control on how you go through your day and what your workload will be. Instead, you should be the one in control.
Here is an easy way to get started with this: don’t check your email first thing in the morning. Make it the second thing – after you have done your most important task.
This first simple step allows to take back control over your day. Even if email is very important to you, give this a try. If that means post-posing checking your email by half an hour – do it. That is plenty of time to do one important task.
3. Don’t always respond instantly
Email is not the best medium for urgent matters – that’s where phone calls excel. However, email is great for correspondence where you don’t require an immediate response.
That’s why you want to make it a habit to not always respond to emails immediately. The idea is that you do not want to condition others that email is an effective medium for urgent matters. If the other person notices that you always respond to email within ten minutes, that person will start to assume he or she can email you for urgent matters.
No.
You want to avoid that as much as possible. Be upfront with people when you communicate a lot via email. I always tell others that they will get a response from me within two business days. If they need to reach me for something urgent, they can call or text me. Otherwise, I prefer to receive emails.
4. Email hotspots
If you constantly checking your email and you process your email as they come in, you are wasting a lot of time. Instead, you should check your email in batches. Batching tasks is an effective way of processing and getting things done that are similar in nature. That’s why you should do this as well as part of how you manage your emails. Here is a simple tip to do that:
Check emails at fixed times and spend no more than half an hour each time.
I like to call this concept “email hotspots” – the times of the day when you process your email in batches. This requires you to turn off your email program and to learn that it is okay to process emails at fixed times each day.
This guidelines is flexible depending on how many emails you get. If you get less than thirty emails a day, checking your email twice in a day should be good enough. In a typical 9-to-5 day, 10am (you have an hour to do one task before checking your email) and 3pm are great times to do this.
5. Touch it once
The touch it once principle says that each item should only be handled once. This is especially the case for emails. Have you ever read an email, thought about replying back, postponed it and you had to reread the email again to understand what it was about? It happens to the best of us.
Doing this for one email is fine. What if you have to do this with twenty emails? You will be wasting a lot of time. It’s more effective to deal with emails as you read them for the first time. Don’t let emails linger around “for later”. Touch it once. Read and decide what to do right away with it. If it takes less than two minutes to respond, do it right away.
If you have to respond but for some reason you can’t – put the email in the drafts folder. This folder will have all the emails you’ve started to reply to, but have not sent yet. As you come back to it, you know where to find your email and you can promptly respond.
(Photo credit: Businessman Working on Email via Shutterstock)
+Thanh Pham is an obsessed productivity geek, systems thinker, blogger, avid reader and a world traveler. He specializes in time management for organizations and personal productivity for executives. Read more about him over at Asian Efficiency.
2×4: An Interview With Stephen Hackett
Mar 11th
2×4: One series that examines two topics, creativity and productivity, by asking those who make things on the web the same four questions on both subjects.
Many of us appreciate the devices in our hand, on our laps and upon our desks. Few understand their heritage. Now heritage may seem like a strange choice of word for describing technology, but as the industry of personal computing matures, its history becomes more and more important, as do the people who truly know and understand their evolution. One such writer, a man so dedicated that he has Clarus the Dogcow tattooed on his ankle, is Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels fame. The site that is named after the number of pixels across on the original Macintosh (which boasted a 9-inch, 512×342 monochrome display for those of you who aren’t running to Wikipedia).
Now with heritage and history often comes with an air of pomposity. Hackett has none of this. In fact, in both his writing and his various podcasts, the guy is relatable, inventing and often outright hilarious. He has the knowledge, but not the airs. His passion for technology encourages you (or at least me) to learn more about the devices I take for granted on a daily basis. If you’re at all interested in technology, journalism or design, you won’t do better than his 512 Pixels blog. Or the newly created 512 Podcast along with fellow 2×4 alum, Myke Hurley of the 70 Decibels network for that matter. His passion for knowledge also goes beyond technology and into a variety of (often unusual) topics on his podcast, Ungeniused.
Without further ado, here’s a look at informative look at the world of Stephen Hackett.
Creativity
Have you always considered yourself a creative person?
I have. As a kid, I always was writing or sketching.
What mediums and inspirations do you gravitate toward to realize your creative goals?
Sometime between 7th grade Art Club and giving up on my art degree two years in to it, I thought I could become some sort of artist as a living. You know, a hip graphic designer who could draw and paint, too.
It turns out while I am pretty handy with a Wacom tablet and Adobe software, I can’t draw or paint. Not even a little. I can, however, write. So I suppose my mediums of choice are the pixel and the written word.
If you had to point to one thing, what specific posts or creations are you most proud of and why?
2011 marked the first time I ever really wrote a lot of personal posts on 512 Pixels. That said, I am super proud of Two Years and The Fifth Floor, which are both posts about my wrestling with the fact that my three year old has brain cancer.
Any suggestions for those who feel they may not be creative enough to unlock their inner artist?
While I’m sure most people would say “Don’t give a shit about what others think,” for me, not caring what I think is more important in many ways. I often find myself dismissing one of my own ideas before I act upon it, censoring myself. Sometimes, that can be good, but for me, it often means that I don’t do things that I probably should.
Productivity
Can you describe your current personal and professional responsibilities?
Sure. First and foremost, I’m a husband and the dad of two small kids. With our son still in and out of the hospital for various tests and things like physical therapy, we’re busier than the average 4-person family, I believe.
From 9-5, I work for The Salvation Army as the IT/Multimedia Director for The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center. The building is currently under construction, and is slated to open late this year. I oversee all of the IT, audio video and multimedia stuff. If it involves data, pixels or electricity, my department is there, ready to work.
How do you go about balancing the personal, professional and digital?
I get it wrong all the time. I am late to work because I can’t tear myself away from breakfast, but I check work email before bedtime. The system I outline below helps, and I’m trying to be more intentional about separating work from home.
What tools and techniques do you find yourself counting on to get through your workload?
I say this often: my life is in OmniFocus. I have folders for home, work and the website. Inside those folders, I have dozens of projects, with lots and lots of tasks.
For capture, I use Field Notes notebooks. There’s always one in my back pocket. A couple times a day, I take any tasks and move them in to OmniFocus. When in the car, I use that Siri-on-the-keyboard feature to get things in to my OmniFocus Inbox without crashing my truck.
Notes and reference information live as plain text files in Dropbox. I get to them via nvALT on my Mac and Notesy on my iPad and iPhone.
What is the best starting point for the unproductive amongst us, who are looking to get more organized?
Something like OmniFocus isn’t going to help you get off the ground. Get some colored index cards, assign a color for work, home and other and go to town writing stuff down.
Michael Schechter is a Mac geek who rambles about how technology impacts our productivity, our creativity and our lives. You can connect with him over on his blog Schechter or as @MSchechter on Twitter.
How 30 Minutes a Day Can Increase Your Intelligence
Mar 9th
If you ask me, where humans go wrong is with their lack of patience. That, and their recent acquired taste for instant gratification.
The reality is that things take time. Richard Branson didn’t become a millionaire overnight. Madonna was not an overnight success. David Beckham was not born a superstar footballer.
That said, it’s actually pretty easy to improve yourself. Why?
Because most people don’t bother.
The majority of people don’t do a single thing to improve themselves. They just coast along expecting the world and everyone else to change for them and then get frustrated when they end up stuck in a rut.
So I’ve come up with a new theory: The Half Hour Theory.
I love it because it’s actually pretty easy to integrate into your life. The general idea is that you do one small thing every day for half an hour and then as time goes by you gradually improve. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? You’d be surprised how many people don’t do the obvious. They do a lot of ‘talking about the obvious’ – but rarely do they take action.
This could take the form of half an hour’s reading every day. Doing so for one year will mean you have read the equivalent of 24 books – that’s more than most people read over a decade, let alone one year!
You may even want to improve the speed of your reading so you can learn faster. It could take the form of half an hour of study everyday – a new language or a new skill. This would equate to a full 6 week course by the end of the year.
This theory could even rely on you taking a half an hour every day spending time on the Internet, researching into something that really interests you. Doing this will ensure that you are always up to date with new trends and breakthroughs in your area of interest.
The point is that by dedicating a small amount of time every day to something that will expand your intelligence or improve your life in some way, you will (after a while) notice a large result.
How half an hour can increase your intelligence
Here’s how to implement The Half Hour Theory:
- Pick something you’ve always wanted to learn or become more proficient in.
- Schedule in a half an hour everyday to devote to learning the new skill (early morning is often a good time as there are no distractions, times during a commute are also great as this is dead time).
- After a considerable amount of time (a few months at least) check in to see what you’ve learned. You’ll be surprised to see how much progress you’ve actually made.
- Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a few sessions – simply get back on track. Remember: you’re doing more than the average person even if you fall a little bit off course.
- Be patient. Don’t expect results overnight. It takes time to build up a new skill.
(Note: If you’re not sure how to get started, here’s a handy list of 60 ways to improve yourself in the next 100 days.)
(Photo credit: Post-It Note on Screen via Shutterstock)
How to Write for Lifehack
Mar 9th
If you’ve been a reader of Lifehack for any length of time, first off – thank you.
Secondly, you’ve probably noticed that we have a wide variety of guest contributors who offer up tips, tricks, tutorials and more. But have you ever thought about contributing yourself?
If you have and you’re looking to do so, we’re always on the lookout for fresh material. And this piece here will let you in on how to write for us here at Stepcase Lifehack.
The Application Process
Everyone who wants to write for us here at Lifehack has to apply using a short application form. The form asks just a few simple questions (along with gathering the email under which you’d like to apply):
- Who you are and whether or not you own/have a website you write for. This portion is pretty self-explanatory. It’s best to put something in the website spot – even a Twitter URL will work so that we have a sense of a presnece online that you have control over how you present yourself.
- Which topic(s) do you want to write about? The main categories we have at Lifehack are as follows: Communication, Productivity, Management, Lifestyle, Financial and Technology. They are fairly broad in scope and while you may be able to write for all six categories, don’t feel you have to do so. There’s a lot to explore in each category, so if you only feel proficient enough in one of them then only mention that one. You can always expand your areas out later on if you begin to write for Lifehack. Take a look around and see what’s been written here both in the past and currently to get an idea of what we’re looking for in each category.
- Do you have any sample work? This is key. Whether you provide us single URLs for an entire website that you are the sole contributor for or you send us samples from across the web, if you don’t put anything in here then your chances of making it through the application process are slim to none. If you write for a site that features multiple authors and you want to showcase your body of work there, you can usually do that by clicking on your name in a post you’ve written – that will give you a URL for all the posts you’ve written there.
After you submit your application, give us a couple of weeks to review it so we can decide if you’re going to be a good fit for Lifehack. If you don’t hear back from us within that time frame, it means that your application didn’t make the cut; there are a number of reasons why this may happen, so please don’t be discouraged by it. You can always re-apply at a later date.
If you’re approved, you’ll get a welcome email from one of our editors, outlining some of the basics you’ll need to get started writing for us right away. Some of these particulars include your username and password, a link to sign up for a newsletter that allows us to regularly update our contributors and a request for a bio for us to use beneath your articles.
Now you’re ready to contribute for us. So what else do you need to know?
The Basic Guidelines
Every submission for Lifehack must meet the following criteria to make it to the editing phase:
- Articles should be at least 600 words in length.
- Articles must be original work from the author – and unique to Lifehack.
- Articles cannot contain any self-promotion – including links and/or references to authors’ own business, or affiliate links. Your bio is where this kind of stuff can go (excluding affiliate links and in a limited fashion).
As a Lifehack contributor, you also must agree to our Content Contribution Policy, which is listed on our Contribute page.
So…Are You Interested?
Writing for Lifehack will give you and your work quite a bit of exposure, and you’ll be able ot say you’ve written for a site that has worked with the likes of Chris Brogan and Leo Babauta. Both of these former Lifehack contributors have gone on to do spectacular things, and you can start to head down a similar path by doing some specatacular things right here and now.
So what are you waiting for? Now that you know how to write for Lifehack, it’s time to start the journey to actually writing for Lifehack! We’ll hope you’ll look into joining us soon.
Questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments area below.
(Photo credit: Green Key via Shutterstock)
Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can read more of his writing and learn more about him at Vardy.me, and he can be found on Twitter as @mikevardy.
Why You Should Work While Others Are Sleeping
Mar 9th
“If only I had more time in the day…”
Everyone wants more time in their life.
Well, you have time.
You just aren’t choosing to use it.
The Magic Hours
When people say that they don’t have time to pursue their dreams, they often say it is because there are not enough hours in the day.
I ask them, “What are you doing from 4 to 7 AM?”
I usually get incredulous looks, followed by threats if I affect their sleep time.
Then I ask, “How late were you up last night? …And what were you doing?”
This is usually followed by confessions of hours of TV or web surfing.
When I suggest they get up early to pursue their goals, most people say that they are not a morning person.
Yet, for most people, the early morning is one of the best times to do important things.
To workout… to write that book… to pursue that dream… whatever it may be.
The hours from 4AM to 7AM are magical hours.
Most people are sleeping.
This is when dreams get done…
Goals become real…
And the impossible happens.
What could you accomplish during these magic hours?
How Badly Do You Want It?
Every goal has a cost. Every dream requires dedication and sacrifice.
Are you will to do what is necessary to reach yours?
Or will it always remain… just a dream.
Here a 5 Ways to Use the Magic Hours to Reach Your Dreams:
- You DO Have Time – You have the time, you just aren’t using it wisely. Stop staying up til midnight watching mind-numbing TV or endlessly surfing the Internet… or worse. Get some sleep. Then get up early and get to it!
- Do What Others Will Not Do - Doing the extraordinary is not easy. If you want something badly enough, you have to be willing to do that which others will not. Successful people do things that most people view as impossible.
- It IS a Choice – “I couldn’t do that.” “I am not a morning person.” Wrong. You could do that… you just aren’t willing. You could be a morning person, but you choose not to be. Instead, work while others sleep.
- Pay the Price -You want your dream, but are you willing to pay the price for it? You have to be truthful with yourself. For example, you want to get in shape, yet you are not willing to get up and go running each morning at 5AM. Every dream has a price, they are never free.
- Early Gets it Done – Getting your important work done early is a powerful motivator. You will have accomplished more before others get up, than they will accomplish all day. While others are dragging themselves into work, you will have a spring in your step knowing that you have already done great things.
Find Your Magic Time
4-7AM.
This is magic time.
It is when uninterrupted work gets done…
It is when dreams get built…
It is when dedicated individuals pursue things that others choose not to do…
Stop having dreams and start making them happen.
Find your magic.
Question: Do you use the magic hours of the early morning?
The Secret Weapon: A No BS Approach to Productivity
Mar 8th
I’ve always known the folks behind Brain Toniq were into getting things done, but I had no idea that they were going to build a secret weapon to create a “no BS” approach to do so. But they have, and it’s a pretty compelling system.
Here’s what The Secret Weapon is, as described by its creators:
The Secret Weapon is a free organizational methodology for both professional and personal aspects of life that re-organizes emails, ideas, and every to-do big and small into one system that stays synchronized across a person’s computers as well as their smart phones.
The power behind The Secret Weapon comes from the way it takes the best aspects of David Allen’s popular GTD methodology and bringing them together with what is perhaps the most popular productivity application in the world, Evernote.
It’s really quite brilliant because Evernote is one of the best tools for capturing ideas, notes and the like because of its ubiquity. It is available on virtually every platofrm, and syncs across all of them. That means you can be literally anywhere and Evernote can capture everything you throw at it, locking it down for you to access when you want – whether that is now, soon, or later on.
The Secret Weapon is a system that allows you to better sort out your tasks wherever you want within Evernote (largely based on notebook orientation and tags) and lets you focus your attention on the long-term aspects of your work and life in a much more visible way. And since all aspects of The Secret Weapon are free, the barrier to entry is much lower than other systems that profess to accomplish the same mandate.
Video walkthroughs are available on The Secret Weapon website that outline the approach and the front-end work you’ll need to do within Evernote to make The Secret Weapon take shape. And once you’ve fully implemented it, all of the ideas and tasks in your life await you in a better (and safer) organized manner — and are put into the proper contexts as well. You control The Secret Weapon, which allows you choose when and where you will focus on your ideas and tasks. With The Secret Weapon, the idea is that you’ll achieve that ever-elusive Inbox Zero as a result – and you’ll wind up reaching your long-term ambitions at a far more or efficient and effective way.
Well, I’m going to put that theory to the test.
I’ll be putting The Secret Weapon approach through the paces over the next 30 days, so watch for a follow-up on this in our “30 Days With” series at Lifehack sometime next month. Hopefully after reading that, you’ll know if this is a weapon worth having in your arsenal.
Photo credit: The Secret Weapon
Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can read more of his writing and learn more about him at Vardy.me, and he can be found on Twitter as @mikevardy.
8 Things You Can Cook More Efficiently Using an Oven
Mar 8th
We all want to make the best use of our time, and time in the kitchen is no exception. For many of us, cooking has become synonymous with drudgery — with that perennial question, “What’s for dinner?” striking a silent sigh from within.
Yet cooking from scratch is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and our families.
While I do make my living as a cook, I’m just like the rest of you. I don’t want to spend needless time in the kitchen at the end of a long workday…or on my days off. I also don’t want to have to fuss over sauces or stove top dishes that require constant supervision to save them from the risk of total ruin.
One of the best kept secrets for efficient and easy food prep in the kitchen I discovered early on was to use the oven — and for a lot more things than pies, cakes, or roast chicken. It really is the ultimate kitchen multi-tasking device. I can get a recipe written up and laundry done while the soup I’m going to have for dinner roasts quietly in the oven.
Why you should cook in the oven
- Using the power of dry heat is a kinder, gentler way of coaxing flavour from simple ingredients. Don’t believe me? Try roasting your green beans next time you think about steaming them.
- It’s mostly a “hands-off process” once you’ve completed all the preparation – the oven does all of the hard work. Perfect for those of us who work from home, or a Sunday afternoon…when you’re likely home anyway.
- If you have time (but not attention), the oven is the perfect way to cook. Just make sure you put a timer on — and like that commercial from the 80′s used to say: Set it, and forget it!
- Despite the hype about low-cost fast food, cooking from scratch is cheaper — and better for you. Using the oven makes it easy to do that with very humble, inexpensive ingredients.
- There’s no special equipment needed. Think of your oven like a big slow-cooker. With multiple settings, no need for a new piece of equipment, and no loss of valuable counter real estate. I’ve had best success with cookware I already have –- sheet pans and parchment paper for many things, and cast-iron frying pans and pyrex casserole dishes for things that are a bit more fluid.
What should you be cooking in your oven?
- Soup. Any soup that is going to be pureed and/or that requires a flavour base of browned aromatics (onions, carrots, celery, garlic) is much easier to do in the oven. A rough chop, then sprinkle with salt and pepper, and finally a toss to lightly coat with oil. Bake at 375 degrees until everything is fork-tender. Puree in a large bowl with hot chicken stock and adjust seasonings. That’s it!
- Chickpeas and other dried legumes. Dried legumes are so much more frugal than canned, but usually involve soaking, rinsing and simmering. Cooking chickpeas in the oven is easy as placing them in a casserole with a heavy lid — no soaking required. Toss in a small onion, whole garlic clove and a bay leaf, cover with 1” of water and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 2-3 hours. Bake up a lot and you can freeze the extras with a bit of the cooking liquid for later use.
- Jam. Cooking jam the classic way involves cooking fruit and sugar on the stove top until it reaches that magical temperature of 220 degrees. This usually requires stirring to avoid scorching on the bottom, and sometimes some scorched fingers in the process as it bubbles up. Most jam recipes follow a basic ratio of fruit:sugar. Just follow this ratio, but spread everything out in large roasting pan. Cook at 300 degrees for about 2 hours, with a stir every 30 minutes or so. It will get thicker as you get close to the end.
- Beets. Are you tired of trying to figure out how to peel beets without running the risk of maiming yourself? Roast them unpeeled! 350 degrees in an oblong pyrex pan covered with foil; there’s not even any oil needed – the moisture in the beets does it all. After 60-70 minutes (for medium-sized beets) they should be tender through. Slice off the top and bottom and the peels will slip off! Chop up and store to use in salads, or for quick pickles through the week.
- Savoury salads. Roasted root vegetables make a great base for savoury salads. Roast these on a parchment lined sheet pan with a bit of olive oil, onions, garlic, balsamic vinegar and spices if you like (smoked paprika makes a great addition, or try some ground coriander with your carrots). Roasting everything with the balsamic gives it a complex, new dimension that you won’t get by dressing it after the fact.
- Tomato sauce. Tomatoes taste best when they have been reduced slowly, with a bit of caramelization happening (for the geeks out there, look up the Maillard reaction). It’s super easy to achieve this using the oven. Fresh tomatoes are best — if they’re in season, but canned are excellent if they’re not. Add onions, rosemary, whole peeled garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil. Roast on a parchment-lined sheet pan.
- Caramelized onions. No worry about them burning. Peel and chop as many onions as will fit on your sheet pan. Chop them pole-pole, and toss with a bit of olive oil, and 1/2 tsp salt. Roast on a parchment-lined sheet pan for 60 minutes at 375 degrees.
- Polenta. Classic polenta requires stirring…and monitoring…and more stirring. Using the oven to bake polenta is dead-easy and only requires one intermediate step along the way — with equally delicious results! Bake 1 cup polenta, 4 cups water, 1 tsp or so salt, at 350 degrees in a covered 3 quart casserole for 1 hour. Check it for moisture, and stir in cheese if you want. Bake for another 15 minutes and serve.
Conclusion
So now that you have this technique at your disposal, play around with it. Start thinking of your oven as a “mechanical prep-chef” — and think about the different ways you might use a big batch of roasted beets, chickpeas, or tomato sauce throughout the week. A large batch of polenta can be eaten as a side dish, and leftovers can be chilled in a loaf pan and eaten sliced and fried until crispy 2 nights later.
The more ingredients you have prepared in advance, the less stressful dinner will be!
(Photo credit: Modern Oven Detail via Shutterstock)
Janice Mansfield is a personal chef specializing in creating customized recipes and meal plans for people coping with multiple food sensitivities. She also created a line of cocktail bitters for no other reason than she wanted chocolate bitters in her Manhattans! When not cooking or cocktailing, she documents the antics and unbearable cuteness her two Shiba Inus.
How to Use a Calendar to Create Time and Space
Mar 7th
There has been plenty of discussion online and off about how a calendar fits into one’s productivity system. The general rule of thumb is that scheduled appointments should go in your calendar, while tasks and the like should go into whichever task management system you use.
What often gets lost in the discussion is what appointments should go into your calendar in order to best maximize your time and ensure you’re making progress on the things you really want to be doing. One of the best ways to do this is to get a bit more granular with the definition of appointments so that you can use your calendar more effectively as part of your overall productivity system.
Types of Appointments
1. General Appointments
These are appointments in the most traditional sense. They may be doctor’s appointments or business lunches. Either way, they are fairly general in terms of what we define as appointments, so they should be treated as such. These types of appointments can be moved to different dates if given enough notice and both parties are able to make it happen, although you should try to keep them “as-is” in most cases.
2. Self-Appointments
These are appointments you make with yourself. They can be time blocks that you schedule so that you can work on tasks or projects without interruption – by yourself or others through distraction. These types of appointments are also transferable, but I would recommend you try to build a framework so that they stay as static as possible. Pick some time where you can work in 90 minute intervals as a self-appointment regularly so that you can create a habit and improve productivity. Break these times up with breaks where nothing is set in stone. You can even take the larger blocks and break them down into smaller chunks using The Pomodoro Technique if you’d like so that you can move from task to task.
Keep these amount of time sacred, but be nimble enough that you can move that amount of time to other hours of the day.
3. Team Appointments
These are appointments where a team is needed to come together. The best way to schedule these is after the other two types of appointments are locked in your calendar. While it might be hard to schedule these after doing so, there are tools like Doodle, Tungle.me, and even Google Calendar that can help pick optimal times where most can be present. When it comes to these types of appointments, the needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few, so self and general appointments may have to be adjusted in order to make them work. But only adjust those as a last resort – your time is important and your teammates need to realize that.
Conclusion
I’ve heard some productivity types say that scheduling time blocks works against you – that it goes against the grain and is nearly impossible to do. But John Cleese has brought forth the argument that people need two things in order to create: time and space. I couldn’t agree more with that assessment.
If you keep in mind the types of appointments you have at your disposal, your calendar becomes a tremendous tool that allows you to create this time and space for yourself.
(Photo credit: Close Up of a Calendar Page via Shutterstock)
Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can read more of his writing and learn more about him at Vardy.me, and he can be found on Twitter as @mikevardy.
The Three Cs to Getting Any Job
Mar 7th
(Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Brian Tracy’s new book, “Earn What You’re Really Worth: Maximize Your Income at Any Time in Any Market”. Brian Tracy’s extensive personal studies in business, sales, management, marketing, and economics enabled him to move up to become the head of a $265 million company before he turned his attention to consulting, training, and personal development. For more information on the author, please visit his website and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.)
There are three Cs to getting the kind of job you want and earning the kind of money you want to earn. These three Cs basically remain constant throughout your working career.
They are contacts, credibility, and competence.
First, the more contacts you have in the marketplace, the more likely it is you will find the job you want. The more people you know and who know you, the more likely it is you will uncover one of the 85 percent or more of job openings that are never listed anywhere.
This is why it is so important for you to network continually. Join clubs and associations. Ask people for referrals and references. Tell your friends, relatives, and associates that you are in the market for a new job. Make sure that everyone you know is aware that you are available and looking for a job.
Nothing is more important than your circle of contacts. The great majority of jobs that are filled in the hidden job market are filled because someone knows someone. And you can expand your range of contacts just by telling people that you are available and asking for their help and their advice.
Your Reputation Is Important
The second C is credibility. This is made up of your reputation and your character. Your credibility is the most important single quality about you in terms of getting recommendations and referrals from your contacts.
Make sure that everything you do is consistent with the highest ethical standards. Make sure that you never say or do anything that could be misconstrued by anyone as anything other than excellent conduct and behavior.
Remember, people will only recommend you for a job opening if they are completely confident that they will not end up looking foolish as a result of something you do or say.
Be Good at What You Do
The third C is competence. In the final analysis it is how good you are and how good you have been in your previous jobs that will determine, more than anything else, how good you can be at the job under consideration. Next to your character, your level of competence will be the single most important factor in determining your success in your career. This is why you must be continually working to maintain and upgrade your levels of competence through personal study all your working life.
The Seven Qualities Most in Demand
Every employer has had a certain amount of experience with both good and bad employees. For this reason every employer has a pretty good idea of what he or she wants more of. Here are the big seven:
- The first quality that employers look for is intelligence. In every study, it has been found that fully 76 percent of the productivity and contribution of an employee will be determined by his or her level of intelligence. Intelligence in this sense means the ability to plan, to organize, to set priorities, to solve problems, and to get the job done. Intelligence refers to your level of common sense and your practical ability to deal with the day-to-day challenges of the job. The key to demonstrating your intelligence is for you to ask intelligent questions. One of the hallmarks of intelligence that is immediately evident is curiosity. The more you ask good questions and listen to the answers, the smarter you appear.
- The second quality sought by employers is leadership ability. Leadership is the willingness and the desire to accept responsibility for results. It’s the ability to take charge, to volunteer for assignments, and to accept accountability for achieving the required results of those assignments. The mark of the leader is that he or she does not make excuses. You demonstrate your willingness to be a leader in the organization by offering to take charge of achieving company goals and then committing yourself to performing at high levels.
- Integrity is the third quality sought by employers. It’s probably the most important single quality for long-term success in life and at work. Integrity begins by being true to yourself. This means that you are perfectly honest with yourself and in your relationships with others. You are willing to admit your strengths and weaknesses. You are willing to admit where you have made mistakes in the past. Especially, you demonstrate loyalty. You never say anything negative about a previous employer or a person whom you have worked with or for. Even if you were fired from a previous job, never say anything negative or critical.
- The fourth quality that employers look for is likability. Employers like people who are warm, friendly, easygoing, and cooperative with others. Employers are looking for people who can join the team and be part of the work family. Men and women with good personalities are invariably more popular and more effective at whatever they do. Teamwork is the key to business success. Your experience in working as part of a team in the past and your willingness to work as part of a team in the future can be among the most attractive things about you in applying for a job.
- Competence is the fifth quality sought by employers. We spoke about this earlier. Competence is terribly important to your success. It is really the foundation of everything that happens to you in your career. In its simplest terms, competence is the ability to get the job done. It is the ability to set priorities, to separate the relevant from the irrelevant tasks, and then to concentrate single-mindedly until the job is complete.
- Courage is the sixth quality that employers look for. This is the willingness to take risks. Courage also means the willingness to accept challenges, the willingness to take on big jobs or even new jobs where there is a high degree of uncertainty and the possibility of failure. Courage also means the willingness to speak up and say exactly what you think and feel in a difficult situation. Employers admire men and women who are not afraid to speak their minds. And you demonstrate this in a job interview when you ask frank and direct questions about the company, the position, and the future that you might have with the organization
- The final quality employers look for is inner strength. Inner strength means that you have the determination and the ability to persevere in the face of adversity. Inner strength means that you have the quality of persistence when the going gets rough. You demonstrate inner strength when you remain calm, cool, and relaxed during the job interview. If you are calm and cool during the interview, it is a good indication that you will be calm and cool in the inevitable crises that occur during the day-to- day operations of the company.
Above all, it is your character, which is the sum total of all your positive qualities, that will have the greatest impact on whether you get the job you want. Your job now is to continue working on your character by practicing the behaviors of top people at every opportunity.
(Photo credit: Freeway Sign, Next Exit…Dream Job via Shutterstock)
Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can read more of his writing and learn more about him at Vardy.me, and he can be found on Twitter as @mikevardy.
6 Tips to Get More Time on Your Side
Mar 6th
While it’s true that we all have the same amount of time in each day, there are ways we can better use the time we have to make it feel like we have more of it. That’s why others are able to get more out of their day than others.
But there’s no reason why we all can’t have the appearance of more hours and minutes in our day. It just takes implementing a few simple tips each and every day to see that it happens. Here are 6 tips that you cna use to get more time out of your day – and get more time on your side as a result.
1. Check email less
Email is one of the greatest time sucks that we have coming at us every day of the week. If we treated it more like the mail it was meant to replace (snail mail) and not like a command or an order, we’d be able to save tons of time sticking to the task at hand and not diverting our attention to our inboxes.
Create a rule for yourself – and everyone that corresponds with you via email – that you are going to limit the amount of times you check email per day. Be ruthless about it. If someone really needs to get a hold of you, there’s always instant messaging or the telephone. Set some standards to live by with your email management and you’ll find you’ll more hours to live with in the end.
2. Plan the night before
Take some time the night before – or even at the end of your work day – to map out what you plan to do the next day. Doing this will accomplish two things:
- It will remove the mental clutter from your head so you can leave all of your work for the day behind until the following day.
- It will allow you to come in the next day and know exactly where to start; no more slow starts to the day…just action.
3. Don’t fight your body clock
If you’re an early riser, great. If you’re a night owl, that’s fine. Just don’t try to change that unless you absolutely have to for reasons that can’t be avoided.
Night owls and early risers are equally productive; they just produce the results at different times of the day. For example, I’m writing this piece at nearly midnight, just as my creative juices are beginning to wind down for the night. Other writers may have already gone to bed well before this time and are up at the crack of dawn to tackle their next work. I’ve tried to fight my body clock more times than I’d like to recall – and it isn’t worth the battle. go with the flow on this one – you’ll be better off for it and so will your work.
4. Eat less and eat well – but eat more frequently
Breakfast, lunch and dinner are key meals to have every day, but they aren’t enough if you want to keep the energy going. You need to eat a little bit less during those pre-ordained meals and at 2-3 more eating periods during your day.
Of course, you need to eat well. Try to limit your sugar and caffeine intake. I have found that a small amount of almonds and some cucumber at the ready always makes for a good snack to keep me going. Don’t sacrifice your health for more time – because doing that will have the opposite effect.
5. Stay hydrated
Drink plenty of water. Keep a water bottle nearby and try to drink water that isn’t ice cold – the body has an easier time dealing with it that way.
Tea is also great if you need a break from the mundane. But remember to limit the caffeine intake – some teas are chock full of the stuff.
6. Do the hard work up front
Get the tough stuff out of the way early on. Whether that’s setting up a system so that you can be more productive or whether it is a task that is going to take more mental and physical energy to complete, do those things off the top.
Setting up an app like Evernote, Hazel or whatever task manager you choose takes some doing in the beginning, but if you spend the time doing the hard work up front it will pay off in spades over the long haul.
Conclusion
These 6 tips may seem simple enough, but they are not so simple to maintain. But if you keep at it and keep your eyes on the prize – which is more time for you to do what you really want – then you’ll find that sticking to them is time well spent.
(Photo credit: Man Turning Back Clock with Finger via Shutterstock)
Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can read more of his writing and learn more about him at Vardy.me, and he can be found on Twitter as @mikevardy.