While reading articles and blogs online about productivity and time management, I came across a nice article on time saving tricks over at “Optimistic Lifestyle.” I hope you enjoy these practical tips: 18 Time Saving Tricks for Everyday Life. Have a productive weekend!
” No one reaches peak performance without being stressed, whether an athlete, an office worker, or a manager.” — Robert Ostermann, American psychologist
“We need to reframe how we look at anxiety. It’s not something to run away from, but something that can be used as productive energy. Fear is the body’s way of preparing for action.” — Robert Rosen, Ph.D., author of Just Enough Anxiety: The Hidden Driver of Business Success
You may think you know what stress is…but do you really?
In the medical sense, stress is your body’s response to any kind of demand or constraint, good or bad. Put that way, it’s obvious that some stressors can be positive and adaptive; that is, they may help you stay healthy, provide a sense of good feeling, or both. Some researchers call such stressors “eustress .”
A good example of eustress is exercise. Though it stresses the body, it ultimately makes you healthier and generates good feelings because of that. Getting a promotion, riding a rollercoaster, having a good cry, or experiencing childbirth can all be forms of eustress.
Distress is any stress deriving from negative situations or implications. But think about it: even distress isn’t always a bad thing. For example: fear of failure, which is definitely a negative stressor, can drive you to study hard for your exams or put in the time necessary to make your next presentation a memorable one. Similarly, fear of being late for work can help you get moving on a slow morning.
In other words, stress and productivity aren’t necessarily enemies. Stress can and does drive productivity; indeed, to some extent stress is necessary for productivity. You’ll never achieve SuperCompetence in the workplace if you don’t think big and set solid deadlines, for example. Working to achieve these things is inevitably stressful. How can it be otherwise, when you’re stretching yourself beyond your old boundaries?
In this sense, stress is your friend. Unless you want to end up just another unremarkable Joe or Jane, you need to put the pressure on and shoulder those responsibilities that drive you toward success. The key is not to let the associated stress overwhelm you, and to disengage (at least for a while) when you see the signs that it’s beginning to.
The Yerkes-Dodson Law
Like it or not, stress is an intrinsic part of the work environment, and a critical element of achievement. Fortunately, it can be harnessed, if you keep in mind that productivity and stress share an inverted “U” shaped relationship. That is, as stress increases, so does productivity…to a certain point. If stress builds beyond that point, the level of productivity drops precipitously. This is known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law, after the psychologists who initially described it back in 1908. (They put it in terms of arousal vs. performance, but the same principle applies.)
So let stress drive you, but don’t let it drive you into the ground. If you can, save your worst stressors for those times of day when your energy level is highest, so you’ll be able to face them head on and face them down. If you ever reach the point where stress has you up against the wall and you can’t take anymore, then you must be willing to stop and take a step sideways.
This is true even if it seems that there’s no time to stop. If you don’t, you’re likely to skate up over the top of that Yerkes-Dodson curve and then down the other side, straight into incompetence and lack of productivity. Isn’t it better to push the reset button on your stress, so that your productivity can reset along with it?
So take at least a little time off and do something soothing, whatever that means to you. Some of us like to visit an art museum, or work in the garden, or cook, or watch mindless television; whatever it takes to recharge your batteries and blow off steam, as long as the recreation itself isn’t stressing. To the body (and to some extent, the mind), all stressors are the same, and they’re cumulative. Therefore, I’d recommend that you avoid drinking, playing violent video games, doing tough puzzles, or any other physical or mental stressor—even if those things are normally relaxing to you.
When you’ve ridden the stressmobile as far as it’ll take you productively, get out and slide back down that curve to the bottom. Enjoy life. Don’t think too hard. Go with the flow for a while…and then, when you’re ready to go back to the grind, you’ll be fresh and open and sparkling with optimism and new ideas.
Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) shares suggestions on managing time by limiting activities. (C) 2011 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved http://www.theproductivitypro.com
When I think of productivity tools for the modern business professional, one of the first that comes to mind is Outlook, Microsoft’s insanely useful personal management program. Outlook began life as an email client, and it’s still a great one; but in the past decade, it’s grown into so much more. These days, Outlook is also one of the chief ways that savvy business professionals manage their time and maximize their accessibility, from scheduling their meetings to keeping track of their personal contacts.
This past year we were blessed with a new version, the inventively-named Microsoft Outlook 2010. It’s chockfull of interesting and practical features–some of them completely new, and others refinements of features introduced in earlier versions. In this article, I’ll show you how to best take advantage of a few.
The Ribbon Interface
In Outlook 2007, Microsoft introduced the Ribbon Interface on some Outlook windows, primarily those associated with message views. Now it’s all over the place, including the Inbox itself. As part of the Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface, it’s designed to help you quickly find the commands you need.
As with Word and other Office programs (into which the Ribbon has been integrated long since), related tasks are grouped under tabs; with minor exceptions, menus are history. And here’s something exciting: you can also add customized tabs to your ribbons to enhance your personal work style and thus maximize your productivity.
See the rest of the article here.
Sign up today for Laura’s brand new webinar series for Microsoft Outlook 2010: http://theproductivitypro.com/s_outlook-virtual-training_1210.html
Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), discusses how planning ahead can make transition time easier. (C) 2011 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved http://www.theproductivitypro.com
“It is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.” — Zig Ziglar, motivational expert
“Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you are right.” — Henry Ford, American industrialist
Your Attitude is your state of mind toward the world around you—the precious combination of motivation, drive, and proactiveness that help define who you are. If you want to succeed in the workplace, you need to ensure that the sum of those factors is positive, so that your Attitude can pull you forward, rather than drag you down like an anchor. You must be willing to look beyond (or around or under) the expected, and take steps toward achieving what you find there. Not only will such an outlook help you achieve the improbable on a regular basis, it’ll help you get through those inevitable times when everything looks dark and difficult.
SuperCompetents always think positively, because they’ve learned that when your reach exceeds your grasp, you can accomplish amazing things.
This remains true even when your Attitude takes you to the rarified heights of the C-Suite. Attitude is one Key that translates more or less intact from the lower management levels; the name doesn’t even change. Like all the Keys, though, at the higher elevations it grows into something more encompassing than it was before. It’s now your responsibility—and your privilege—to expand that Attitude beyond your personal space to the entire organization that you’re in charge of.
Now, the elements comprising Attitude always remain the same, no matter where you stand in the corporate hierarchy. You’ll always have to safeguard your health; relentlessly persevere; harness your personal creativity; play well with others; and maintain a positive, upbeat approach. It’s hard work, admittedly—but it’s hard work with a purpose. And it’s not going to get any easier as you rise in the company, despite a pervasive belief to the contrary. If it does, you’re probably doing something wrong.
Here’s what I mean by that. While you’ll always have people upstream and downstream from you who are affected by your Attitude in one way or another, when you’re a lower-level employee, your influence is minimal. If you twist off and don’t get a report done, it’s going to be an annoyance more than anything else; and if it’s annoying enough, you might find yourself out of a job…and that’s about as far as it’ll go.
But as you rise in power, you also rise in influence. Whether you like it or not, the people subordinate to you will be looking to you for guidance, while anyone above you will eye you with certain expectations. That’s why, when you’ve finally hit the heights, your drive to achieve personal SuperCompetence must evolve into a drive to achieve organizational SuperCompetence as well.
You’re still just one person, but your influence at the C-Suite is so substantial that a failure of Attitude can affect the whole company. Last blog, I deplored the old “le etat, c’est moi” outlook, because it can destroy a company if upper-level execs let it go to their heads. But the thing is, it’s true to some extent. As the CEO, President, VP, or Chairman of the Board, you may not be “the state” per se, but people do look to you for leadership—and you can be sure that your Attitude, whatever it may be, will be adopted by others. If you don’t maintain a positive Attitude of striving toward excellence, then others will assume that’s acceptable…which it certainly is not in a world-class organization.
Worse, even those who attempt to maintain a positive attitude may end up being dragged down by those who don’t. The result will be a toxic work environment where the best workers can’t accomplish anything and don’t stay long.
Does it sound like the weight of the world is on your shoulders? In a way, it is. It’s one of the prices you have to pay for the kind of ambition that takes you to the C-Suite in the first place. If you want to enjoy all the perks at the top, you never really get to slow down. But that’s fine; because you get to shape the organization toward your own personal vision—and one way you do it is by maintaining a strong, steady Attitude. You must remain unremittingly positive, always striving to achieve that winning outcome.
