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

Summer’s over and it’s time to get back to school! This gives you an opportunity to set some goals with your kids.

Many people think of January 1 as the New Year. However, I think the back-to-school season is a much better time to get some perspective on kids’ lives and what we’d like to change in the coming school year.

What are some of the objectives you have, both for yourself and your children? How can you as a parent help them learn to be more productive and help them achieve success? One of the best gifts that you can give your children is the opportunity to grow and to learn. You have to help coach them, counsel them, encourage them, and sometimes discipline them.

Before school begins, take the opportunity to sit down and have a family meeting. What are some things that your family wants to accomplish? What does each child want to accomplish? Maybe you’d like to spend more time together eating as a family. Perhaps you want to go on a vacation this year. Maybe your child wants to be more involved in more activities or try a different sport. Maybe the homework grades weren’t quite as good as they should be.

If you know, for example, that homework skills are sliding, decide to help you child get on top of that! To see a change in that area, what would need to happen? Do you need to get a child a tutor? Do she need to go in early to get extra help from the teacher?

As adults, looking back, what habits did you form that have impacted you as an adult? What formative behaviors will be critical to your children as adults? Did you procrastinate a lot on term papers, and now you find yourself doing that with work assignments?

Encourage your children when you see these behaviors that you know will impact them later. Tell them, “It’s the start of a brand new year. Let’s look at those long-term papers and projects together. Let’s break them down. Let’s create some milestones. How can you be proactive and plan those various deadlines so that when those items are due, you’re going to be stress-free?”

Use this as an opportunity to make a fresh start. Take a deep breath and figure out how you can be a good role model to your children and help them be as productive as they can be.

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.

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) discusses how your health can affect productivity and how important it is to take care of yourself. (c) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved

How is your energy level after work? 

When you work hard all day long and come home exhausted, what is the first thing you want to do? For many people, it’s pick up the remote, sit on the couch, watch television, and just veg out.

Let’s discuss some alternatives, because the less you do, the less energy you are going to have. The more you do the more energy you are going to have. It’s one of life’s cruel ironies. Take exercise for example. The more you exercise, the more energy you have; the less you exercise, the less energy you have. Intuitively, we know this is true, but it is so hard to put into practice.

After you’ve worked hard all day, you come home to more…work.  This is the second shift—the one you don’t get paid to do. You need all the energy you can muster to make dinner, take care of kids, supervise homework, do laundry, clean the house, run errands, and do the myriad chores that make your world go around.

Instead of plopping down on the couch, try these ideas.

1. Don’t drive home. Just drive somewhere else—like to the gym. Sometimes when you are facing an evening of paperwork, bills, or more work after the kids are in bed, the gym could be the best productivity activity you do all day. Sometimes a little bit of exercise keeps your energy level humming through the early evening hours. And how do you feel when you’re done exercising—great!  We always remember how good we feel afterward, but it doesn’t always give us the motivation we need to do it again.

 Or instead of the gym, take a little detour to the park. Do you have a beautiful, open space where you can walk? A track? A path? A loop that you enjoy that gives you energy, that makes you feel good, and gets you out in nature? Or perhaps meet a friend and just ease into your second shift.

 2.  Stop feeling guilty when you take care of yourself or when you work out. Some people feel guilty if things are not going absolutely perfectly in all the lives of the people they love. They want to give their time and attention and energy to everything and everyone but themselves. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t have the ability to take care of others.

 3.  Find something you enjoy.  Move. Do not think of exercise as something you have to do, but something that will get you going, rather than sitting on the couch and letting your energy drain even further, falling asleep in front of the television and being exhausted by 8:00. What do you like to do?  Jump on your kids’ trampoline. Shoot some hoops out in the driveway. Practice Yoga? Find a sense of fun in your play that so many people are lacking.

 Bottom line: You must make time for yourself at the end of your workday. Renewed energy will give you a boost of productivity when you finally do get home and get to work, yet again.

 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.   To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401 or visit www.TheProductivityPro.com to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.

Must you do it all yourself? Not necessarily. Laura Stack talks about the value of outsourcing certain tasks to free up more of your time. (c) 2010 Laura Stack www.theproductivitypro.com

Pledge to work only eight hours on Tuesday, June 2 (versus your normal 10-14) and receive a FREE 10-day eCourse on “How to Leave the Office Earlier,” and be registered to win valuable productivity prizes from Day-Timer®!

June 2nd was designated as National Leave the Office Earlier Day in 2004 by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, bestselling author and a leading authority on productivity and workplace issues.  The annual event, which is officially listed in Chase’s Calendar of Events, is intended to focus workers on improving their personal productivity and asks them to commit to working no more than eight hours on that day.

“The eight-hour workday remains a myth to many working Americans,” says Stack. “But by implementing some simple strategies and tactics, even the most overworked and overstressed people can be more productive and shorten their workday and feel good about it.”

Stack chose June 2 as National Leave the Office Earlier Day because that is her birthday.  “I don’t want to work more than eight hours on my birthday, so that was a good day to commit to leaving on time,” says Stack. 

Visit http://www.theproductivitypro.com/media_kit.htm for a complete media kit and articles for reprint in your ezine, newspaper, or website, as well as a Workplace Flyer to post and a Letter to the Boss.