Never Miss a Deadline Again
By Laura Vanderkam | July 21, 2011
http://www.bnet.com/blog/time-management/never-miss-a-deadline-again/548?promo=713&tag=nl.e713
Every weekend, I list my priorities for the upcoming week. I find that organizing my life in 168-hour chunks gives me a good sense of how I should be spending my hours. When work gets really busy, though, I start scheduling in priorities by the hour Monday through Thursday.
But never Friday.
Why not? Because Friday is my margin time.
Inevitably, something will come up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday that I haven’t planned for. It could be an exciting new opportunity that I need to seize, or it could be a long, drawn-out game of phone and fax tag required to move my medical records from one doctor’s office to another. Either way, that means that something that was supposed to happen during the first part of the week won’t get finished.
If Friday is chock-full too, then I’d run the risk of not completing a priority during that week. Rather than let that happen, I do what I can to keep at least Friday afternoon as open as possible.
Sure, building in a cushion is sometimes difficult. But the pay-off comes in peace of mind. You don’t necessarily have to work until 10PM on Wednesday, because you know there’s an open block on Friday waiting for you. And hey, if everything goes perfectly during the week, then you can spend Friday relaxing! This will never actually happen, but hey, it’s nice to dream.
When do you build in margin time?
MY THOUGHTS
Very sensible indeed! Better start trying out this margin time. I think it will work. Most definitely.
Showing posts with label best people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best people. Show all posts
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
REGAIN YOUR ATTENTION SPAN
6 Ways to Regain Your Attention Span
By Wayne Turmel | May 11, 2011
Does it feel like there are too many little things nibbling at you to actually get any real work done? Just when we settle in to work on the Johnson project, Facebook needs updating, Instant Messenger goes off and there’s that email from your partner in Dallas. How are we supposed to get any work done? We need to rebuild our attention spans.
Too many of us spend our time working like Dug, the dog from the movie “Up”. We get distracted at odd moments (SQUIRREL!) and find it hard to focus. By becoming aware of our tendencies and setting support systems in place we can regain our focus.
Tony Schwartz, the author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, has some ideas. In a recent Management Exchange blog post, he offers 6 tips for regaining the focus we once had.
1. Let your values guide your behaviors - Do you really not know what is most important. While it sounds trite, we need to focus on the things we know to be most valuable. If we thought about it for even a second, is updating our Facebook page really more important than doing a good job on the data for our team? Really?
2. Slow down - Paradoxically, the faster we move the less we often accomplish. Our brains are incapable of multi-tasking, instead we have to switch from one task to the next and each switch has ramp-up and cool-down time associated with it. By sticking with one task until it’s complete (or there’s an organic, natural place to take a break) and then moving to the next task we will get more done and at a higher quality of work.
3. Build deliberate practices that become habits - This one is going to hurt a bit. Many of us have to retrain our brains to stick with one thing at a time. Research shows that ritual and habit are the best ways to make sure we do something in a certain way. The problem is, it takes doing something over and over again until it becomes a habit. Start by blocking an hour (okay, half an hour if you start to get the shakes) in which the focus is the most important work you’ll do that day. Don’t check email, turn off the ringer on the phone. Just do what you need to do. If we did this every day for a couple of weeks, it would becomeour default way of working.
4. Create “precommitments” to keep you on track - This is a polite way of saying you need to burn your boats so you can’t escape. If email is a distraction, turn off your internet connection while you’re working on that memo. Don’t freak out, it has an on switch as well. If we commit to eliminating possible distractions and nonproductive behaviors, not only will we be more focused on the work at hand, but they won’t be there to tempt us at all.
5. Share your commitments - Most of us are really bad at keeping promises to ourselves,but pretty good about maintaining our commitments to others. By sharing your commitment to manage your time better, we’ll be motivated to achieve those goals. We’ll also get some help from those who work witg us. (If you ask your teammates to give you an hour in the morning before the IMs start flying, you may just get it). If everyone knows what everyone else is trying to achieve you can hold each other accountable.
6. Start small - Rome wasn’t built in a day, and going cold-turkey with some of these distractions won’t work very well either. As Schwartz points out, the attention part of our brain acts like a muscle. Try to make it do something it hasn’t done in a while is likely to result in a serious mind-cramp. Still with practice and repetition, we can change our default settings.
For some it will take longer than others. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and reach out to the team members who seem to be struggling with maintaining their focus as well. (SQUIRREL!).
MY THOUGHTS
I love this tips. They are not necessarily easy but they all seem doable.
Okay, for most of us it’s still a work in progress.
By Wayne Turmel | May 11, 2011
Does it feel like there are too many little things nibbling at you to actually get any real work done? Just when we settle in to work on the Johnson project, Facebook needs updating, Instant Messenger goes off and there’s that email from your partner in Dallas. How are we supposed to get any work done? We need to rebuild our attention spans.
Too many of us spend our time working like Dug, the dog from the movie “Up”. We get distracted at odd moments (SQUIRREL!) and find it hard to focus. By becoming aware of our tendencies and setting support systems in place we can regain our focus.
Tony Schwartz, the author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, has some ideas. In a recent Management Exchange blog post, he offers 6 tips for regaining the focus we once had.
1. Let your values guide your behaviors - Do you really not know what is most important. While it sounds trite, we need to focus on the things we know to be most valuable. If we thought about it for even a second, is updating our Facebook page really more important than doing a good job on the data for our team? Really?
2. Slow down - Paradoxically, the faster we move the less we often accomplish. Our brains are incapable of multi-tasking, instead we have to switch from one task to the next and each switch has ramp-up and cool-down time associated with it. By sticking with one task until it’s complete (or there’s an organic, natural place to take a break) and then moving to the next task we will get more done and at a higher quality of work.
3. Build deliberate practices that become habits - This one is going to hurt a bit. Many of us have to retrain our brains to stick with one thing at a time. Research shows that ritual and habit are the best ways to make sure we do something in a certain way. The problem is, it takes doing something over and over again until it becomes a habit. Start by blocking an hour (okay, half an hour if you start to get the shakes) in which the focus is the most important work you’ll do that day. Don’t check email, turn off the ringer on the phone. Just do what you need to do. If we did this every day for a couple of weeks, it would becomeour default way of working.
4. Create “precommitments” to keep you on track - This is a polite way of saying you need to burn your boats so you can’t escape. If email is a distraction, turn off your internet connection while you’re working on that memo. Don’t freak out, it has an on switch as well. If we commit to eliminating possible distractions and nonproductive behaviors, not only will we be more focused on the work at hand, but they won’t be there to tempt us at all.
5. Share your commitments - Most of us are really bad at keeping promises to ourselves,but pretty good about maintaining our commitments to others. By sharing your commitment to manage your time better, we’ll be motivated to achieve those goals. We’ll also get some help from those who work witg us. (If you ask your teammates to give you an hour in the morning before the IMs start flying, you may just get it). If everyone knows what everyone else is trying to achieve you can hold each other accountable.
6. Start small - Rome wasn’t built in a day, and going cold-turkey with some of these distractions won’t work very well either. As Schwartz points out, the attention part of our brain acts like a muscle. Try to make it do something it hasn’t done in a while is likely to result in a serious mind-cramp. Still with practice and repetition, we can change our default settings.
For some it will take longer than others. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and reach out to the team members who seem to be struggling with maintaining their focus as well. (SQUIRREL!).
MY THOUGHTS
I love this tips. They are not necessarily easy but they all seem doable.
Okay, for most of us it’s still a work in progress.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO WORKED AT MCDO
McDonald’s: Jeff Bezos and 5 Other Famous Folks Who Worked There
By Amy Levin-Epstein | Apr 19, 2011
McDonald’s plans to hire 50,000 new employees today as part of a “National Hiring Day” initiative. These new employees join some pretty famous folks who have worked at Mickey D’s over the years. Here are 6 celebs who I vote least likely to have uttered the words “Do you want to supersize that?”
1. Jeff Bezos
The Amazon CEO says that he learned real life skills at McDonald’s — like how to cook breakfast quickly. He told Fast Company that ”one of the great gifts I got from that job is that I can crack eggs with one hand. My favorite shift was Saturday morning. The first thing I would do is get a big bowl and crack 300 eggs into it.” I wonder if he can still do it now.
2. Rachel McAdams
McAdams admitted she wasn’t an A-list employee during her stint at the Golden Arches: “I was slow — I would be organizing the sweet-and-sour packets in the customer’s takeout bag while the line snaked out the door.” Good thing (for her fans as well as potential customers) that she didn’t keep her day job.
3. Macy Gray
This soulful singer didn’t just work at McDonald’s, she called it her “first big break” in a 2006 ad for the company. And that’s not the only famous face that was featured in that ad…
4. Carl Lewis
Another member of that marketing moment? This 9-time Olympic gold medalist, who’s now running for a state senate seat in New Jersey, said in the commercial that his McDonald’s job was “my first race around the clock.”
5. Jay Leno
The late night host shared with Oprah that his local McDonald’s gave him a job, as well as his first taste of comedy success, when they hosted a talent show. Of all the people on this list, Leno seems to me like he’d be the most comfortable flipping burgers.
6. Pink
This pop star probably wasn’t a superstar in the eyes of her boss when she worked at the fast food chain in high school. She admitted in an interview: “I was horrible…I’d be tripping on acid…and I would say, ‘Could I have bathroom duty?’ And I would sit in bathroom and watch the tiles.” Perhaps her ex-manager will see this and her odd request will finally make sense?
Did you ever work at McDonald’s? What useful skills did you learn? Please sign in below and share.
Follow MWOnTheJob on Twitter
MY THOUGHTS
That's interesting news. Shows us how something, which seems to be irrelevant and small, can actually open doors for big things.
By Amy Levin-Epstein | Apr 19, 2011
McDonald’s plans to hire 50,000 new employees today as part of a “National Hiring Day” initiative. These new employees join some pretty famous folks who have worked at Mickey D’s over the years. Here are 6 celebs who I vote least likely to have uttered the words “Do you want to supersize that?”
1. Jeff Bezos
The Amazon CEO says that he learned real life skills at McDonald’s — like how to cook breakfast quickly. He told Fast Company that ”one of the great gifts I got from that job is that I can crack eggs with one hand. My favorite shift was Saturday morning. The first thing I would do is get a big bowl and crack 300 eggs into it.” I wonder if he can still do it now.
2. Rachel McAdams
McAdams admitted she wasn’t an A-list employee during her stint at the Golden Arches: “I was slow — I would be organizing the sweet-and-sour packets in the customer’s takeout bag while the line snaked out the door.” Good thing (for her fans as well as potential customers) that she didn’t keep her day job.
3. Macy Gray
This soulful singer didn’t just work at McDonald’s, she called it her “first big break” in a 2006 ad for the company. And that’s not the only famous face that was featured in that ad…
4. Carl Lewis
Another member of that marketing moment? This 9-time Olympic gold medalist, who’s now running for a state senate seat in New Jersey, said in the commercial that his McDonald’s job was “my first race around the clock.”
5. Jay Leno
The late night host shared with Oprah that his local McDonald’s gave him a job, as well as his first taste of comedy success, when they hosted a talent show. Of all the people on this list, Leno seems to me like he’d be the most comfortable flipping burgers.
6. Pink
This pop star probably wasn’t a superstar in the eyes of her boss when she worked at the fast food chain in high school. She admitted in an interview: “I was horrible…I’d be tripping on acid…and I would say, ‘Could I have bathroom duty?’ And I would sit in bathroom and watch the tiles.” Perhaps her ex-manager will see this and her odd request will finally make sense?
Did you ever work at McDonald’s? What useful skills did you learn? Please sign in below and share.
Follow MWOnTheJob on Twitter
MY THOUGHTS
That's interesting news. Shows us how something, which seems to be irrelevant and small, can actually open doors for big things.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
How to Be the Ideal Employee
How to Be the Ideal Employee
By Margaret Heffernan
I’ve been talking to a lot of graduating classes lately, and they all ask the same question: what makes for the ideal employee?
There isn’t such a creature, I answer. The best are always their own people. But there are three kinds of people I don’t think
any company can live without. I think of them in terms of the three very best people I’ve been lucky enough to have work for me.
Here’s what they had that others didn’t:
The first fulfilled a function that has gone severely out of fashion: she was a terrific interstitial worker, filling in the
gaps between departments, between specialties, between projects. With an uncanny ability to spot the cracks through which
information, details and responsibility disappeared, she fixed things before they went wrong. She would also tell me when I was
making a dumb decision. Everyone knows it’s stupid to surround yourself with yes men and sycophants. But the trick is to find
people who believe in the mission but remain critically aware. She did that all the time.
The second had Zeitgeist. I never figured out how she did this, but she had a true sense of what was going on in the world:
street sense. She could work in any medium, on any kind of project, and her work was always in tune with the times — cool and
credible. Apart from her ability to work like a Trojan, she never stopped looking and thinking, and she never became cynical.
Every day, every project was a fresh opportunity to learn and to shine. She was the only person I’ve ever known with endless
creative resilience.
The third just had quality. He wasn’t an innovator, and in a flashy, egotistical industry (television), he didn’t make a splash.
What he did have was a burning desire for serious work and a real respect for the people he worked with. As a result, good
people loved working with him. I knew I could always trust him to aim high and never cut corners. He built relationships with
his team that lasted for years, because he cared about everyone’s success.
Did they work for me — or did I work for them? I couldn’t say. I’d argue that no business can succeed without people like this.
What other qualities do you think are essential to great employees?
MY THOUGHTS
ideal? maybe someone who has both his heart and head on the job? we can't have those smart but heartless workers. nor the
softiy bimbos.i guees, someone who produces the results and encourages others to do the same?
By Margaret Heffernan
I’ve been talking to a lot of graduating classes lately, and they all ask the same question: what makes for the ideal employee?
There isn’t such a creature, I answer. The best are always their own people. But there are three kinds of people I don’t think
any company can live without. I think of them in terms of the three very best people I’ve been lucky enough to have work for me.
Here’s what they had that others didn’t:
The first fulfilled a function that has gone severely out of fashion: she was a terrific interstitial worker, filling in the
gaps between departments, between specialties, between projects. With an uncanny ability to spot the cracks through which
information, details and responsibility disappeared, she fixed things before they went wrong. She would also tell me when I was
making a dumb decision. Everyone knows it’s stupid to surround yourself with yes men and sycophants. But the trick is to find
people who believe in the mission but remain critically aware. She did that all the time.
The second had Zeitgeist. I never figured out how she did this, but she had a true sense of what was going on in the world:
street sense. She could work in any medium, on any kind of project, and her work was always in tune with the times — cool and
credible. Apart from her ability to work like a Trojan, she never stopped looking and thinking, and she never became cynical.
Every day, every project was a fresh opportunity to learn and to shine. She was the only person I’ve ever known with endless
creative resilience.
The third just had quality. He wasn’t an innovator, and in a flashy, egotistical industry (television), he didn’t make a splash.
What he did have was a burning desire for serious work and a real respect for the people he worked with. As a result, good
people loved working with him. I knew I could always trust him to aim high and never cut corners. He built relationships with
his team that lasted for years, because he cared about everyone’s success.
Did they work for me — or did I work for them? I couldn’t say. I’d argue that no business can succeed without people like this.
What other qualities do you think are essential to great employees?
MY THOUGHTS
ideal? maybe someone who has both his heart and head on the job? we can't have those smart but heartless workers. nor the
softiy bimbos.i guees, someone who produces the results and encourages others to do the same?
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