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

It’s back to school time!  With three kids in elementary and middle school, this is a New Year of sorts for parents.  Here are some tips to help you stay sane and productive:

Back-to-the-Future. The first step in moving forward with back-to-school resolutions is to take a look back. What were the situations from the previous school year that could use improvement? Did your child often miss the bus? Did they have a hard time making the honor roll or even passing grades? Was everyone too busy to sit down for dinner together? Once you figure out what areas need improvement, it will help set goals for the upcoming year.

Talk to your children. Whether your school-age children are in elementary school or high school, talk to them about areas they would like to see change, both personally and within the family. Their insight into what areas need improvement may differ from their parents.  Discussing the differing goals will help to bring every person in the family on the same page.  Buy-in on goals from all members of the family encourages success.

Small steps. Having a student go from straight C’s to straight A’s may be asking too much. The same is true for wanting to have a family who never eats dinner together suddenly sit down at the table five nights a week. Success comes from breaking each resolution into small but achievable steps. Set up weekly goals for each person in the family in order to overcome barriers and create small achievements. Adding steps each week will insure a slow incremental achievement of the main goal.

Make a plan. Assess each resolution and make a list of what changes need to come in to play to have a successful outcome. A child who has not been known for good grades may need to have a tutor. In order to help avoid detention for being tardy, have a back-up plan for your student to take responsibility for making their lunch and setting out their clothing the night before. Move dinner back to 6:30 instead of 5:30 to make sure everyone is able to be there. Having a list of solutions for the resolutions gives everyone a roadmap about how they will reach success.

Coordinate. One of the main challenges with having family resolutions is time. While one parent is working late, another may be taking one of the kids to soccer practice, while the oldest child is at band rehearsal. Posting a calendar with weekly schedules for each person in the household will help everyone keep track of everyone else. This can help the children to know that the parents have early meetings on certain days; so being on time to the bus is a necessity. And parents can keep track of when and where the children’s extracurricular activities are taking place. It is also beneficial to provide each person in the family with a DayTimer planner. This will help keep the kids responsible for their own time and keep everyone organized.

Smile.  Stay light-hearted about the changes.  You can always start over at anytime.  And don’t forget, there’s another chance to create resolutions coming right around the corner.

© 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.

Today we feature guest columnist Monica Ricci.  If you enjoy this article, I recommend you subscribe to her blog’s feed: Monica Ricci’s Your Life: Organized. 

Closing The Loops

Several months ago, a thought whizzed through my head and it was “Life is a series of getting things out and putting them away.”  This is what I call “closing the loops”. If you think of a loop, maybe you picture a circle or an oval. All smooooth and sexy, the curves…

of a loop will never hurt you and the curvy shape is easy on your eyes. No, there’s nothing about a closed loop that hurts!

Now, contrast a nice smooth, wonderful closed loop with an open loop. Open loops are all those little things unfinished that you left for yourself to deal with “later”. The remnants of breakfast from this morning that you never put into the dishwasher, the stack of mail you never processed, or the shoes you dropped by the front door, the appointment you haven’t written into your calendar yet… They’re all examples of open loops. The bummer about open loops is that rather than being all nice and round, the ends are exposed and they’re barbs! Like snakes with sharp teeth, they bite you as you walk through your house. Mess here. Ow. Stack of papers there. Ow. Crumbs and dirty bowls on the counter. Ow. That’s treacherous stuff and I don’t have to tell you, it sucks the life out of you day after day. So how do you close the loops?

Simple. When you get something out, put it away. When you make sandwich, put away the ingredients before you eat it. When you process the mail, throw out the junk and move action items to the same spot every day. Basically, closing the loops is simply becoming aware of what you’re doing in the moment and choosing to follow through with whatever you start.

Follow through. Finish. Close your loops. It only takes milliseconds and it will make your life, your house, and your outlook a whole lot happier.

Look around you, at work and home. Do you feel overjoyed or annoyed? Your environment affects your moods, attitudes, emotions, and energy level. What things sap your energy? You need to figure out ways to reduce, eliminate, or change your environment, so that it lifts you up rather than brings you down. These tidbits might help.

1. Clear the clutter. This requires effort and can be time-consuming, but the real reason people dread clearing clutter is emotional attachment — and because you no idea how to organize what you keep. Focus first on the areas of the home that are most important to your health and vitality, especially the bedroom.

2. Thin out the incoming stream. We all have a constant stream of mail and new possessions coming into our lives. If you don’t develop a regular habit of thinning it out as it walks through the door, it’ll pile up and zap your energy in no time.

3. Create space with the right layout and equipment.  If you get buried in clutter simply because you don’t know where to put things, learn to make creative use of the space you have — including vertical space.

4. Learn to live more simply. Instead of piling on new possessions until you just have to many, stop buying and take a hard look at what you have. Don’t equate material possessions with wealth or happiness, or — worse yet — self worth. 

5. Get rid of it. If you don’t learn how to get rid of things, you’ll be overwhelmed with your possessions. Unworn clothing, unwanted gifts, ancient paperwork — get rid of it.  If you haven’t used it in two years, ditch it.

6. Accentuate the positive. Separate the trash from the treasure. You don’t need to keep unwanted gifts simply because they’re gifts. And don’t be afraid to get rid of things that are dragging you down with emotional baggage: there’s a reason women burn photographs of their old boyfriends. 

7. Keep your office desk organized. No, a clean desk isn’t the sign of a simple mind: it’s the sign of an efficient, energetic mind! The more space there is, the less crowded your energy is. File rather than pile, and gather up those sticky notes!

8. Make a list of the home improvement projects you want to accomplish.  Nagging, incomplete projects not only create clutter, they also drag your mood down because another thing on your to-do list is staring you in the face. Dispatch routine tasks as soon as possible, and work to get the others off your calendar.

Clearing away clutter may seem like too much work, but you need to learn how to do it effectively for your own benefit. Once you cut down on the clutter in your life, you can move on to more productive levels of emotion and energy that put you ahead of the game.

© 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.

These days, most of us use handheld technology in all aspects of our daily lives, blurring the boundaries between work and home. Has this made you feel more overworked and less energized? If so, you need to learn how to break free from technology, turn it off regularly, stop letting it control you, and unplug in ways that boost your energy. Let’s chat about your electronic habits, and about how to regain control.

1. Plan your screen time and stick to it. It’s unnatural to focus on a computer or TV screen for hours on end instead of interacting with people. Yet this is precisely what most people do — and the subsequent feelings of social isolation and depression can be quite damaging to your energy level.

2. Put your life first. Don’t let technology eat up your free time; technology exists to simplify your life, not to complicate it. It’s up to you to keep it in check. A good start is to turn off all electronics an hour before bedtime.

3. Keep your electronic in-box empty. Slash through the electronic detritus to maximize your efficiency, and therefore your energy level. If you let your voicemail and email inboxes get overcrowded, important communications might fell through the cracks, straining a friend’s or client’s trust in you.

4. Get your computer organized. Too much computer clutter can drain your energy just by forcing you to hunt for things that should be easy to find. Delete old files, reorganize folders, and give files names that make their contents obvious at a glance.

5. Turn off your technology when you’re on personal time. You can’t recharge your personal energies if you’re always working. Once the workday is over, make yourself electronically scarce.

6. Avoid Obsessive Compulsive Technology Disorder. You don’t need to check your email constantly. Doing so is forces your brain to start/stop/start/stop constantly, which requires a huge amount of mental energy. Instead, turn off the technological distractions so you can get work done.

7. Just say no to instant messaging.  Instant messaging is a great way to stay in contact, but too much of it steals time and energy you need for other work. Don’t be afraid to turn on the “DO NOT DISTURB” feature when you want to focus on a task that requires your complete concentration.

8. Match the message to the medium. Use the right means of communication for a particular message. Sometimes email is the most efficient way to communicate with a particular person; sometimes it’s better to pick up the phone.

Electronic devices are supposed to make your life easier, not more stressful. If they’ve begun to dominate your life — including your time off — step back and decide whether all that stress is worth the reward. It may be time to shed some of that technology, or at least to put it back in its place.

© 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.

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. 

No matter how technologically savvy we become, we can’t seem to eliminate paper. In fact, studies estimate that we generate up to ten times more paper than we did before the advent of the computer! How much of that paper is sitting in stacks on multiple surfaces all over your home and office?  To tame those mountains of paper, try throwing these ideas at them.

1. Consistently purge your files without fear. Before you embark on an overhaul of your filing systems, purge all the old junk first. Why spend time dealing with paper you’re just going to toss anyway?

2. Create and maintain a filing system that allows you to find papers easily. If you can’t find a particular piece of paperwork when you need it, it might as well not exist. Pick a logical filing scheme and follow it religiously.

3. Follow a daily processing system for staying on top of mail and paperwork. Keep track of your incoming mail and other paperwork every day, and use the 6-D system to deal with it: discard, do, delegate, date, drawer, or deter.

4. Handle bills in a timely fashion and keep up with bookkeeping. Limit the number of credit cards and checking accounts you have, and learn to file everything effectively so you know when bills are due. Online payments can help.

5. Know where you put every piece of paper you receive. Keep different types of paperwork in separate files, and think before you put something into a file: is it really worth my time and effort? For example, most store coupons aren’t.

6. Handle phone calls and voice mail productively. Avoid phone tag, which does little but add to your daily paper deluge. Answering the phone when it rings can be much more effective. Also, start a phone log to keep track of who you’ve called and who’s called you.

7. Use technology to reduce paper and complete tasks quickly. Utilize computers and related devices to automate what would ordinarily be paper-based tasks: e.g., holiday lists, contact management, word processing, and mass-mailings.

8. Keep important papers up to date and easy to locate. It’s especially important to keep track of insurance, medical documents, and wills, and to keep them current at all times. Make a list of all your passwords and bank account numbers too, and make sure your loved ones know where to find that list.

9. Use a calendar system to track family members’ schedules. Use ONE calendar that contains ALL your personal, family, and work commitments, so you can track and sync other people’s schedules with your own.

10. Organize and keep up with my reading. If you’ve got too little time to keep up with your reading, cut back on your commitments, and try listening to audio books. Even better, ditch the stuff that’s so dull it puts you to sleep.

It pays to spend a little time every day making your bill paying, filing, reading, tracking, and scheduling more manageable. If you don’t get control of the paper monster, it’ll get control of you. If that happens, you’re likely to find yourself drowning in a sea of paper — not exactly the most dignified way to go!

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, professional speaker, and author who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training company in Denver, Colorado, that caters to high-stress industries. Laura’s newest productivity book, The Exhaustion Cure (Broadway Books), hits bookstores in May 2008.  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and MolsonCoors.  Contact her at www.TheProductivityPro.com. 

Do you own your possessions, or do your possessions own you? It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the stuff you’ve accumulated — everything from toys and clothing, to tools and all the stuff you regularly use that still counts as clutter. If you’re tired of all your stuff weighing you down, here are some ideas that may help you regain control.

1. Have a systematic plan to get and stay organized. The key to getting organized is FOCUS. Focus on getting one thing completed before moving to the next area. Act like a postage stamp: stick to one thing until you get there.

2. Eliminate clutter and resist adding more. Don’t let your belongings control you. For a start, get rid of unhappy reminders from the past, stop keeping old magazines and newspapers, and don’t buy things just because they’re on sale.

3. Keep your briefcase, tote, or purse organized and clutter-free. Don’t carry stuff around just because you might need it someday: all you’ll end up with is a cluttered mess and a backache. Carry only what you need on a daily basis, keep everything tucked into its own slot, and always put things back after using them.

4. Maintain clutter-free drawers and closets. Don’t just toss things in drawers and forget them. Make liberal use of file folders, trays, and dividers, and use baby food jars as handy paperclip holders and junk catchers. Closets should be subjected to a thorough cleaning at least twice a year.

5. Organize memorabilia such as photos and keepsakes. Before taking the time to organize an item, determine if it’s something you should be keeping in the first place. Don’t keep stuff that doesn’t have any specific meaning or use to you.

6. Keep kids’ toys, clothes, and books organized. Any family with children inevitably fights the battle of the messy monster. Having toys, clothes, and books around is inevitable, but clutter is not. Keep what’s used, and get rid of the rest.

7. Set up and maintain your kitchen in an organized fashion. We spend so much time in the kitchen putting groceries away, preparing meals, and doing dishes, it’s important to maintain an organized space. Be picky about what you keep, and always have frequently-used items close at hand.

8. Keep your car organized and clean. You don’t want to have a two-ton trashcan on wheels. Organize the clutter that stays in the car, and never let anyone get out empty-handed — make sure your trash leaves the car whenever you do. 

9. Set up an effective "office" space in your home. A home office isn’t a luxury these days; it’s just about a requirement. Offices can serve as the family computer center, a place to do paperwork, and the occasional work-at-home office.

10. Keep your house neat, and tidy up daily. Cleaning up doesn’t require anything fancy. Just make sure everything’s in or near when it should be, and regularly put things away so it’s easier to maintain a peaceful, productive frame of mind.

If owning too much is a problem for you, get serious about de-cluttering your life. Otherwise all the clutter will weigh you down, putting pressure on your other pillars of productivity. Start organizing and thinning out your possessions a little bit at a time, and eventually you’ll get there. You’ll be amazed at how good you feel, and how much easier life will be, when all the junk’s gone!

© 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. 

We’ve all been there. There’s mail piled up on the corner of your desk. You have 37 unread e-mails. The phone is ringing (not that phone – the other phone). And you’ll be lucky if you can get through three of the fifteen items on your to-do list.

Oh – and you have four hours of meetings ahead of you.

It didn’t used to be this way. The world has changed in the last decade or so. Has your approach to time management changed with it?

If you find yourself stressed out and frustrated every time you try to hunker down and take control of your time, there’s a good chance that’s because you need a new way to think about time management. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to force yourself to work within a system that just isn’t compatible with the pace of your day or the nature of your work. Just like electronic organizers are perfect for some and others swear by paper planners, even the best time management system will fail if it doesn’t jive with the way you get through each day.

If you’re looking for a productivity system that is compatible with real life, consider 4-A Time Management. By focusing on four key elements of productivity you can create a flexible, customized productivity strategy that is compatible with the fast paced demands of today.

Activity. When there are 117 things that could be done next, how are we supposed to prioritize? In this new era of productivity, it is pretty much impossible to successfully schedule your day in advance. You might set out a clear list of objectives and a bulletproof timetable, but we all know that one unexpected phone call can cause the whole plan to collapse in on itself – priorities change, a crisis pops up, a deadline is moved up a week; these things happen.

Since you can’t plan for everything, it is important that you have a crystal clear understanding of what your priorities are. If something happens that is beyond your control and these priorities need to be adjusted – fine – but until then, you should have a game plan.

Evaluate your to-do list to see which tasks will yield the greatest benefit. The old A-B-C method probably won’t work if the flow of your day changes often. You need a new method of deciding where to spend your valuable time.

Think about the average amount of time that you can work uninterrupted. Which of your tasks will benefit most from that undivided attention? Which require a lot more or much less? Make a plan to work on the bigger, more time-intensive projects when you know you’re least likely to be disturbed. Save the little ones for those windows between meetings and phone calls when you won’t get much else done.

If one of your important projects is just too intimidating for you to ever make any headway, break it down into smaller, manageable steps. I guarantee that nine times out of ten, once you get started you’ll forget why you put it off for so long to begin with.

Availability. The best laid plans won’t stand a chance if you don’t find a way to control your availability. Your time is your most valuable asset. Don’t just give it away to anyone who asks! You’ll never have complete control over your availability, but it’s important to know how to carve out blocks of distraction-free time that is conducive to productivity.

Meetings are notorious for eating up massive blocks of time. Learn to say “no.” It’s pretty likely that you don’t need to be at all of the meetings that you’re attending. Can you send someone in your place? Ask for the minutes to be forwarded? Address the situation with a quick phone call? Evaluate whether the meetings you attend are really necessary.

When you’re not in those meetings, schedule time to work. In some jobs this is easier to do than others. It might just be a matter of shutting your office door and setting your phone to voicemail. Or working from home or heading to Starbucks with your laptop. You might need a clear signal for your co-workers, like using a do-not-disturb sign or putting on head phones when you need to work uninterrupted.

Whatever your solution – don’t abuse it. If you try to make yourself constantly unavailable, you will quickly find that others lose respect for your “I’m busy” signal.

Then you’re right back where you started, whether you’re up against an important deadline or not.

Accessibility. You’ve already decided that you aren’t going to give everyone around constant access to your time. The next step is to make sure that you have easy access to the information, tools, and resources you need to be productive.

Invest the time necessary to make sure the things you need on a regular basis are at your fingertips. Things you access frequently should be filed on your desktop in an organizer or in a drawer that’s at arm’s reach. Put the files you only use occasionally where they are accessible at your desk, but give the easiest access to those things that you reference regularly. Archive files you rarely need in the bottom drawers or in files away from your desk.

Perhaps the most important and overlooked thing you can do to get organized is to structure your electronic files. In an age where most files are electronic, it’s easy to lose them to the vacuum of cyber storage. File electronic documents similar to the way you would paper ones. Don’t just plop everything in “My Documents” or on your desktop and leave it for lost. Set up folders and sub folders that have intuitive titles that you’ll easily navigate. Use dates and enough detail in file names that you won’t have to open multiple documents when you’re looking for something specific. In short, do the initial work of saving the files in an organized manner to make referencing them an easy task.

Stopping to hunt for what you need not only wastes time, but it destroys your rhythm and forces you to break your concentration. It’s well worth it to organize as you go.

Attention. The most effective time management system in the world won’t do a thing to improve your productivity if you don’t focus on the task at hand. For many of us, the problem isn’t a lack of willpower; it’s having the restraint to refuse distractions.

This means closing Outlook when you’re not working on e-mail and trying to check it only a few times a day. Resist the urge to open messages as they come in. This also means letting the voicemail light stay on until you’ve finished what you’re doing. Treat your project time like an appointment with a coworker. Ignore the phone, the e-mail, and the urge to go get a cup of coffee.

Of course, avoiding email and the phone might be much easier than avoiding the distractions that come from coworkers. If you’ve already put your “do not disturb” signal in place, be it headphones or a closed office door, and you’re still being interrupted, it’s time to tactfully redirect the person distracting you.

Acknowledge the issue and let them know you’re in the thick of an important project. Ask if you may give them a call in an hour when they may have your undivided attention.

Just remember – it’s better to be like a postage stamp and stick with something all the way to the end than it is to be a butterfly that flits from task to task!

So forget managing your time – it can’t be managed. Manage yourself with these 4 A’s and you’ll increase the likelihood you’ll have a productive day.

Make it a productive day! ™

www.TheProductivityPro.com

I like a new service by Catalog Choice, in which you decide which catalogs you want to receive.  When you receive a catalog you don’t want, you enter it on your account and select "Decline Catalog."  They contact the merchant on your behalf and request that they no longer send you their catalog. Reduce the number of catalogs you receive in the mail!  One-stop-shop method keeps you from having to unsubscribe to each one individually—a real time saver!

Order relates to your level of organization: your ability to sort, filter, and process information effectively. It also involves your ability to find what you want when you want it, and how tidy your work area looks — especially to the people who matter.  Here are a few ideas to help you control the paper, email, reading material, and inputs that flow into your office.

1. Realize that some people aren’t born more organized than others. Understand that organization is a skill that can be learned, just like riding a bike. Getting organized is a process of trial, error and persistence, but you can master it if you’re serious about it.

2. Keep a clutter-free work surface. You don’t have to be creative and disorganized, if you’re willing to learn and the pain is bad enough. No matter what you’ve seen on coffee cups, a clean desk is NOT a sign of an empty mind.

3. Know how to organize "pending" items requiring future action. Create a tickler file, an indispensable system that will remind you which papers require your action today, and allow you to forget the rest until their time has come.

4. Maintain orderly and organized files, so you can find essential information when you need it. If you’ve ever taken more than three minutes to find anything you need, then it’s high time to reorganize.

5. Sort, process, and store incoming information quickly and easily. Every piece of paper, email, voicemail, and fax that you get is simply a piece of information. There are only six things that you can do with any piece of information: discard, delegate, do, date, drawer or delete (the 6-D system).

6. Discard information quickly and easily. Don’t be a packrat. If you doubt you’ll ever use or read something, don’t be afraid to toss it.

7. Touch paper only once. Be very decisive, and have a home for each type of information. Sort it using the 6-D System, decide immediately where each item belongs, and put it away.

8. Avoid using sticky notes or scraps of paper to record messages or tasks. Temporary notes should be for temporary things, like writing down a number you’ll use only once, or marking comments in a document. Consolidate your system using phone logs and organizers.

9. Know the contents of every cabinet, drawer, and storage space in your home and office. The only way to do this is to go through every item you own and give away, put away, toss, or store it. This is an effective way to "poison the packrat" and complete projects that have gone undone for too long.

10. Have a systematic plan to stay organized. Staying organized requires ongoing practice and planning. The most effective way to control clutter is to say no — to new tasks, belongings, magazine subscriptions, whatever.

It’s critical that you learn to organize everything associated with your work. Not only does a messy office make it more difficult to find what you need when you need it, it’s a career deterrent: people with messy work areas are less likely to get promoted. Remember, perception is reality these days. Leave your office messy all the time, and your career may stall. And you still won’t be able to find what you’re looking for!

© 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.