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

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) discusses how “I’ll do that later” can affect your productivity. (c) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved

Tweet This Post

PC Magazine recently published a list of “52 Incredibly Useful Sites.” The web can sometimes be filled with time-wasting sites, so it’s great to have a list of sites that can boost productivity and make web-surfing more enjoyable. Kudos to PC Magazine for this great list! Enjoy:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/194735/52_incredibly_useful_sites_the_full_list.html

Tweet This Post

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) Talks about finding the best use of your time in the morning. (c) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved

Tweet This Post

SOCIAL MEDIA UN-PRODUCTIVITY – HOW TO AVOID ADDICTION

I’ve coined the term Obsessive Compulsive Social Media Disorder. Do you have it?

Many people confess, “Facebook is my secret addiction. I’m obsessed! I don’t really know how to cure it, but I spend hours every day on Facebook, plus LinkedIn, Twitter, and all my other social media sites. I’ve not yet been able to monetize the results of this activity and am not really sure whether I am getting any business off of it.”

It’s a common complaint. You absolutely need to have a presence in social media and spend time doing it; however, it can be a huge productivity drain if you are not careful.

Here are a few tips to make it more manageable and more productive:

1. Do not leave your Twitter feed open and observe posts in real time.

There are a lot of 3rd party tools to help you sort through all the clutter and pay attention to the posts you really care about. I use www.tweetdeck.com and turn off all the alerts. The last thing you want when you’re trying to concentrate on an important document is for alerts to sound and text boxes to be pop up all over the place, distracting you from what you’re trying to work on. Use a tool that will help you consolidate all the information, keep up with favorite people and search terms, and reply to direct messages.

2. Get as much automatic linkage as you can get.

For example, each day I post the Productivity Pro Tip of the Day to Twitter. I don’t post these manually. I went to hootsuite.com, loaded 365 tips for the next year, where automatically, every day at 8:15 a.m., hootsuite posts that day’s tip to Twitter.

That automatically posts to my Facebook and LinkedIn. Everything has a dual purpose. You want to be able to post in one place and have it show up on another. When I post an article or video on my blog, it’s automatically cross-posted on my Facebook fan page.

3. Try to limit how many times a day you check your profiles.

See if you can get yourself down to checking/posting three times a day: morning, noon, and afternoon. I only check twice. I check once about 10:00 and once about 3:00. You have to figure out what the formula is for you, but always being on and never having more than a four-minute block at any one time to do your work is truly going to sabotage your results. Your goal with social media is to achieve maximum results in minimum time.

Get creative about how you can cure your Obsessive Compulsive Social Media Disorder. Here is to getting rid of the addiction!

To find out more about The Productivity Pro®, Inc. or have Laura Stack speak at an upcoming meeting or event, please visit at www.theproductivitypro.com.

Make it a productive day! ™

© 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved

Tweet This Post

HOW TO SAY NO WITHOUT SAYING NO: REFUSING REQUESTS WITH TACT AND GRACE

1. Try to negotiate.
When someone asks us to do something, when do we assume they mean they need it? We assume they mean now. But that’s not always the case. Instead of doing a task immediately, try to negotiate. Can you extend the deadline a bit? Just ask, “Do you need that today? Or would Monday be okay?” You will often be pleasantly surprised.

2. Simplify.
Can you reduce the scope of the task? Asking, “At what level of detail does this need to be done? Does it need to be to the second decimal place or can I just round a little bit?” Find out in advance.

3. Communicate.
Simply be honest about what’s on your plate. Saying “Here’s a list of all the things I’m working on in priority order. Where would you say this one falls?”
When you manager gives you a task, you can give an estimation of the deadline and the due date that you can have it returned.

4. Reduce quality.
What do I mean by reduce quality? It involves asking if the task can be done at 85% rather than 100% perfect. Ask what level of perfection is required here? Do you need me to spend two hours crossing every T and dotting every I? If so, I’m happy to do that. Or do you simply want me to get it out the door in five minutes?

5. Delegate.
Usually you’re the delegee. But you could try to get someone else to help you. You could form a committee. You can call in some temporary help. You could outsource it. So ask specifically, “Can I get help on this? Or do you want me to do this myself?”

6. Streamline.
Do it a little more efficiently. Can you change the process? Ask, “Can we skinny this down a bit? Rather than doing this report once a month that takes me four hours, can I do an executive summary once a quarter? That would only take me two hours.” Much more efficient.

7. See what can be eliminated.
Have you ever asked yourself the question, “What would happen if this just didn’t get done?” What a great productivity concept! “If I didn’t do this at all, would anybody notice?” Great question. If the answer is no, see if your manager would let you skip it.

8. Get creative.
How else could you meet this request? Figure out an alternative way to get the result, other than the way it was originally outlined. Say, “You know, it might be more efficient if I had access to your calendar, rather than sending you an e-mail every time I want to put a phone call on your calendar.”
Your manager can grant you Editor permissions for her calendar, so you can schedule appointments directly for her.

9. Can you try partial delivery?
Ask the requestor, “Can I do a piece now and a piece later? I complete this portion immediately and give you the rest next week, if that’s okay?” Meet the immediate need and work on the rest when it’s not pressing.

10. Redirect.
Send the task elsewhere if it truly doesn’t belong on your plate. If your boss has a computer problem, rather than crawling along on the floor checking wires, tell her, “That request actually goes through IT. I’ll make sure they know about this problem and schedule a time for it to be fixed.”
The point is to take as much as possible off her plate. Getting it handled doesn’t mean that you have to do it.

To find out more about The Productivity Pro®, Inc. or have Laura Stack speak at an upcoming meeting or event, please visit at www.theproductivitypro.com.
Make it a productive day! ™

© 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved

Tweet This Post

Getting People Out of Your Office Quickly

1. Always choose to visit a colleague, if given a choice.
When scheduling a meeting, you’ll have to decide where to hold the conversation: your office or mine? During a face-to-face conversation, it’s always better to go to them.

Why? You can leave! If someone’s in your office in your comfortable guest chair, “feet up,” so to speak, it’s much harder to get them out of your office than to walk yourself out of their office.

2. Be honest.
If they say, “Got a minute?” and you don’t, you can say, “Actually, I have my back up against the wall right now on a deadline. If it’s okay with you, can I call you back at 3:00?” And actually let them see you type the appointment in your calendar. They walk out feeling like I have an appointment! It lets them feel that they’ve been heard, but you didn’t take on the interruption right then.

3. Deflect low priority interruptions with alternate scheduling.
In our quest to be helpful and to provide great customer service to our coworkers, we are always willing to jump in and complete whatever is asked us of, regardless of what else is on our plates.
You can’t always do things in the order they appear. Some things aren’t that important right now. It’s okay to say, “That meeting’s in three weeks. Would it be okay if we connected the week prior?” By deflecting requests that aren’t mission-critical at the moment, you keep your attention focused on the critical things.

4. Use verbal tactics and body language.
When someone is in your office, do you ever have a problem getting them to leave? They’re still there chatting away and can’t take a hint. Try these verbal tactics.
Sometimes it helps by talking in past tense, such as, “It was nice having talked with you.” Or tou can try to summarize your conversation and the action items. You can even try some body language cues like turning back to email or shuffling papers. But what if the visitor still doesn’t get it?

5. You’re going to have to be assertive.
There comes a point when you can’t get someone to leave your office, you need to smile pleasantly, and say, “You’re going to have to excuse me now.” And keep smiling and don’t make excuses. There is nothing wrong with communicating, “I need to get back to work.” Because sometimes, honestly, people don’t get it. They will say, “Oh! Sorry!” and jump up and walk out. Just smile and wave.

6. Put a clock strategically behind you on the back wall.
When you are talking with a visitor, you can casually turn around and glance at the clock on the wall behind you. It’s perceived as rude to look at your watch, but when you quickly turn and glance at the clock on the wall, guess where they look? It’s a subtle, psychological cue that says, “Okay, we are on a deadline here. I think we need to get moving.”

7. Practice the “slow stroll.”
If the person still doesn’t get it, you could actually get up and walk out of your own office. Have you ever tried this? It really works! Keep a pile of copying on the side of your desk or something that needs to be delivered.

If the person does not stop talking, get up, tap them on the shoulder, say, “Come with me while I make these copies” or “Come with while I get a cup of coffee,” and walk right out of your office. Guess what? They will follow you! Hey, if they’re going to talk, you may as well get something done.

8. Get creative with your chairs.
Several people have told me they keep a pile of papers or folders in their guest chair. When people walk in, there is nowhere to sit, so they stay standing. Because they are standing, they can’t get comfortable. If they are not comfortable, they will leave.

If you want someone to sit down, you can actually move the pile of paper and offer them a seat. But, if not, hopefully they’ll get out sooner.

To find out more about The Productivity Pro®, Inc. or have Laura Stack speak at an upcoming meeting or event, please visit at www.theproductivitypro.com.
Make it a productive day! ™

© 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved.

Tweet This Post

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) discusses advanced planning. (C) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved

Tweet This Post

Looking for a better way to keep track of your time, log hours for various clients, or see where time is being wasted? You’ll want to check out Chrometa’s Automatic Time Tracker.

Chrometa automatically records the time while you work — both on and off the PC. You’ll discover previously undocumented billable time, save time on billing reconciliation, and improve personal productivity.

Once your time is automatically captured, you can categorize your time quickly and easily by client or project. Use smart alerts to remind you to log time away from the PC such as meetings or phone calls. And easily export the data into Microsoft Excel.

If you’re serious about boosting your personal productivity, and getting paid for every second you work, Chrometa is THE ideal time management software for you. You can use it free for 30 days – we highly recommend you download Chrometa’s Time Tracker now, and regain control of your time today.

Tweet This Post

You can know all the productivity tips in the world, but nothing will work if you don’t have the energy to give 100 percent. Personal energy is a measure of how strong, invigorated, or up to a task you may feel at any moment. If you feel down, your zest ebbs, and you tend to produce mediocre work. So know your own rhythms and plan your work around them. If you tend to have a lot of energy first thing in the morning, then do your most challenging work then. High energy gives you the ability to concentrate well, make critical decisions, perform complex analysis, or do any task requiring creativity or problem solving.

When your energy is low, however, these tasks become more difficult, take longer, and often have poor results. So if the afternoons are difficult for you and you experience low energy, choose a healthy way of dealing with it rather than coffee. Pick something that will bring you back to a state of alert productivity. When you feel like you simply cannot start a new task, take a break. Go for a brisk walk, eat some protein, or stand up, stretch, and move your body. Nobody has an unlimited supply of personal energy, so know and honor your patterns and match your tasks to your energy level.

(C) 2010 Laura Stack – All Rights Reserved

Tweet This Post

What do you do when you have the perfect plan set up for the day, then everything and everyone tries to blow up your plan?

Part of that could be your fault. Perhaps you’re responding to e-mails as they’re coming in or otherwise wasting time. But the other part is no fault of your own. You need to learn some language, verbiage, and techniques to use when someone asks you to do something not on your plan. If you’re thinking, “This is just not that important right now,” you need to know how to decline gracefully. Certainly there are some things that are worth stopping what we’re doing and handling; however, there lots of things that aren’t important and don’t qualify to be handled immediately.

One of the things you can do is always negotiate a due date with the person as they make a request. I’ve have some people tell me, “I’m an administrative assistant I can’t possibly negotiate or say no.” You don’t have to use the word “no,” but you have to get creative in how you respond. For example, when someone comes in and asks you to do something, when you assume that they need it? You might assume people need their requests handled now, but do they always need it handled immediately? Of course not. It’s your job to find out.

Asking a simple question such as, “Do you need that now, or would Monday be okay?” is perfectly fine. But if you don’t ask, if you don’t take that quick second to check in with a person, you don’t really know what the priority is, so you do it right away. It’s your job to query and negotiate the deadline.

Another idea is to find out at what level of perfection the person may be expecting you to complete that task. Yes, some things need to be perfect. If you have a multi-million dollar contract going out to your biggest customer, go ahead and spend the time to cross every “t” and dot every “i.” But sometimes there are things that just don’t need to be done perfectly. I’ve seen people take hours composing the “perfect” e-mail, and it’s not even going outside the company. You don’t need that level of brain damage for a little internal memo.

Another idea on saying no creatively is to have the other person help you prioritize. You could, for example, keep a running list of tasks and projects that the people you work with and support give you. As people come in your office or email or call you, simply ask what the priority is relative to the other priorities on your plate. Say, “I’m working on this database project that you’ve given me and running these reports. Do want to me to stop work on that and start work on this?” People need to get very specific about their needs. If you have a list of 57 prioritized tasks and this is number 14 on that list, you can be more realistic about a completion date. Have the other person help you determine where items fall, helping them to be realistic. Clearly communicate to others, “Hey I’m only one person. I can only get so many things done. What you want me to attack first?”

How do you make sure that you’re on the same page with the people you work with, so that nobody ends up disappointed, and everybody gets what they need, when they need it? Can you share some tips in gracefully saying “no” or negotiating? I look forward to learning how you handle these situations!

Tweet This Post