I will be on QVC between January 1 and January 8, 2009, selling my new Productivity Pro(R) branded Day-Timer. In preparation, I’m conducting a brief survey about the to-do list habits of the typical person. When you think of something you need to do, what do you usually do? Please visit the survey on my LinkedIn page and respond to one of five choices. Thank you for your assistance!
Ever had an argument with a colleague about the commas in a sentence like the following? The battery pack gives you several options: 6 hours, 4 hours, 3 hours and 40 minutes, 2 hours and 45 minutes. Is that four options or five options? A comma before the last and makes it clear. But do you ALWAYS need a comma before that last and? Answer: No, the serial comma is optional. But you’re always safe to use it for clarity sake—as illustrated in the “battery-pack” sentence.
Here are a couple tips to prevent grammar gaffes and save you a few minutes in reaching for a reference book:
• The assure/insure/ensure dilemma: (All three words mean to give a guarantee—but they aren’t interchangeable.) Use assure only when you’re referring to someone talking or writing. Use insure only when you’re talking about a monetary payment. Use ensure for all other situations.
• Myself or me? Wrong: For prompt payment, send the invoice to Kerry or myself. Right: For prompt payment, send the invoice to Kerry or me. Never use myself unless I or me is already used in the sentence; it’s used to add emphasis to those words. (Example: I told him myself.)
• To Capitalize or Not? Think “brand name” or generic. If the word under consideration is the brand name of something, capitalize it. If not, don’t. Example: He works at Universal as a vice president. He works at my company as a vice president. Vice President Jim Tuttle works in my department.
Need more help? Booher’s Rules for Business Grammar: 101 Fast and Easy Ways to Correct the Most Common Errors (McGraw-Hill) by Dianna Booher provides 101 more entertaining, brief chapters (most 1-2 pages) that focus on the common mistakes heard every day on the job. The “memory tricks” at the end of each chapter solidify the rule for the next time and the next, saving you valuable look-up time!
(Another tip: If you want to check for a skills gap in this area first, you can take a free online assessment at www.howsyourgrammar.com.)
I found this article at BNET.com very interesting. Separating hours on the job from results has been a boost to productivity in many situations. Outside of the service based or retail environments, should our productivity be based on hours spend on the job, or on what is accomplished? Some companies, like Best Buy, have implemented the Results-Only Work Environment or “ROWE,” and finding success. When I chat with audience members after giving a keynote speech, they tell me about coworkers who spend 10-12 hours a day in the office and get nothing done. That’s because being physically in the office has little to do with productivity. Some people can be there ten hours a day and get virtually nothing done, while others can accomplish great amounts of work in just a few hours.
I’m the Day-Timers community expert on productivity. So I asked them to put a brief survey on the Day-Timers Web site, asking, “When you think of something that you need to do, what do you usually do?” In this day and age of technology, the surprising answer was overwhelmingly “Write it down.” To date, 55% of respondents chose this option over others. This demonstrates that even with Blackberries, Outlook, cell phones and web based to-do lists, we still need and use paper and planners.
Picture this…you’ve dutifully put all of your information, appointments, phone numbers etc. into your Outlook and synced the information with your handy-dandy Blackberry. All is well. You hop on a plane for a business trip, Blackberry in hand. You’ve arrived at the
Don’t get me wrong, I think technology is terrific. I use it on a daily basis, but I won’t be caught anytime soon without my Day-Timer. It only takes one crash or glitch to realize how useful paper can be.
(C) 2008 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. www.TheProductivityPro.com
Keynote speaker, productivity trainer, author, spokesperson
People love their Blackberries, no doubt. A recent study confirmed this, according to this article on WCBSTV.com. They may be terrific productivity tools for some, but at what cost? The article by Scott Rapoport states “The study of 6,500 traveling executives says 35 percent of them would choose their PDA over their spouse.” Wait a minute – people would choose a communication device over a loved one? If this is true, where have we gone wrong?
It is important to keep track of your business, be connected to your co-workers, clients and employers. Blackberries certainly have made this easier, particularly for those who don’t spend most of their time in the office. With this easy connectivity, are people losing the ability to know when to turn it off? It would seem that technology is not only helping us be more productive, but is also blurring the lines between work time and off time. Is it really more productive to have one foot in the working world and one foot on the home front at the same time? I’m not so sure…
If we are always “available” via Blackberries, email, cell phones and pagers, are we truly focusing on our loved ones when we are allegedly “off” from work? Can we really let loose and play if we’re always poised to answer the next email or text message? Unless your connection to work means life or death, you CAN and should turn off and tune out when the work day is over. Are we working to live, or living to work?
(C) 2008 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. www.TheProductivityPro.com
There are many terrific blogs on the Web that I enjoy reading. However, it’s easy to waste a lot of time book marking each individual blog in your “favorites,” and then visiting each one individually when you have time to do some reading. It can be even worse if you have numerous email subscriptions clogging up your inbox. When you have more than just a few blogs you like to read, make it easy on yourself and try a free, simple solution like Google Reader.
Google Reader allows you to organize your favorite blogs and read them all in one place. When you subscribe to the RSS feed of a blog, instead of opting to receive emails, select Google Reader as your method of delivery. You can organize your feeds into folders much like your favorites or bookmarks in your browser. That way you can quickly scroll through your subscriptions to see which posts you want to take the time to read. You can also elect to share your favorites with others. I’ve found Google Reader to be a big time saver. Give it a try!
(C) 2008 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. www.TheProductivityPro.com
A recent article in the June/July edition of Working Mother magazine pointed out that “Men contribute more to household work and child care than they did 45 years ago – by a large margin.” While this may be true, a recent study, Married Parents’ Use of Time, 2003-06, posted by the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that there is still a gap.
The study shows that married fathers spend an hour more at work than married mothers on average. Married mothers had increased likelihood of providing care to the family’s children than married fathers by 21%. On an average day, married mothers working full time are 25% more likely to spend time on household activities like cooking, yard care and cleaning than the married fathers working full time. There is also an imbalance of leisure time among married men and women who work full time. On average, the men got close to an hour more of leisure time per day than the women.
What does this say about how men and women use and place value on their time? Many complain about the uneven division of labor, but some are proactively trying to change it. The Web site Equally Shared Parenting authored by Marc and Amy Vachon who have been featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Today Show and NPR. In reading their site and various articles on this theme, a common thread is some women’s challenge with letting go and letting their husbands do things their own way. Hmmm…there might be some truth to that. Maybe you just need to decide – is it more important for the time to be more equal or more important that the laundry is folded “just so” or that the dishwasher is properly loaded? What standards are you willing to shift in order to make time spent on the business of raising a family more equal between partners?
Will everything ever be 100% equal? Probably not. The key is that both parents continue to work together to find the right fit for their family. Not happy with the division of labor? Keep talking!
(C) 2008 Laura Stack. www.TheProductivityPro.com
Just ran across a nice blog called “Ian’s Messy Desk” that features my article “Reducing Your Reading Pile: Handling Article Overload.” He has many nice posts to help you get the most out of the 24 hours in your day. Take a look.
TODAY’S THE DAY! Buy my newest book The Exhaustion Cure: Up Your Energy from Low to Go in 21 Days on Amazon.com today, Tuesday, May 13. Email your receipt to Katie@TheProductivityPro.com, and you will receive a special link to some great, FREE bonuses resources. Contributing to this promotion are best-selling authors Mark Sanborn, Dianna Booher, Chris Widener, and Roxanne Emmerich. This book will help you boost your capacity for personal productivity by increasing your energy level, which will help you achieve your goals in less time.
Thank you for your interest and support!
The Exhaustion Cure: Up Your Energy From Low to Go in 21 Days
Laura Stack Broadway, $13.95 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-7679-2751-2
With brisk efficiency, Stack (Leave the Office Earlier) breezes through 21 factors affecting the energy or capacity to perform the myriad duties, obligations, responsibilities and activities of daily schedules. In an appealingly simple format, Stack breaks these factors into three categories: physiological (including diet, nutrition, sleep, exercise and metabolism), practices (attitude, relaxation, time management, etc.) and periphery (environment, relationships and stress level), and guides readers through three weeks of replacing “energy bandits” with corresponding “energy boosters.” Her health advice focuses on maximum results in little time; her cures for major energy drains (cigarettes, caffeine, electronic devices, workaholism, perfectionism and procrastination, for example) are practical, and her perspectives on stressful home and workplace relationships are refreshing. She helps readers distinguish between status quo tasks and more fulfilling ones that move them forward, and makes a strong case for focusing rather than multitasking. While her “just do it” approach may not work for everyone, it just might help many clear a path to realizing their dreams. (May)
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6552502.html?q=Exhaustion+CUre
