One approach to ensure effective decision making in small, informal meetings is to develop motions and decisions through consensus. Consensus occurs when there is general agreement by the group on the decision being made.

Well managed meetings allow all participants to be part of the decision making process. Here are some techniques a chairperson can use to encourage and support group participation and discussion:

The chair solicits views

The meeting chair suggests that comments are welcome from the group and, if necessary, asks specific participants to share their views. Participants hear a number of short opinions rather than listening to one or two long speeches.

A survey

After a short discussion, the chair asks for a show of hands to determine support for proposed idea(s). This should help the chair determine how to proceed. This encourages participants to express an opinion.

Groups

Groups can be very useful in the decision making process at meetings and for generating new ideas from participants. The meeting divides into smaller groups, i.e. four to eight people, for a fixed time to discuss assigned issues. A person is chosen to record the conclusions of the group. The groups then report their ideas to the larger meeting. The alternatives that are generated will assist the meeting in resolving issues and making decisions acceptable to all.

Brainstorming

This is a procedure for generating many spontaneous and diverse ideas which can help to develop alternatives that will assist in resolving the issue being discussed and in coming to a decision. Guidelines for brainstorming are:

• don’t criticize the ideas of others while brainstorming;
• impractical suggestions may trigger practical ideas among other participants;
• the more ideas, the greater the chance of developing a very good idea;
• build on the ideas of others, improve on a previous idea or combine several ideas into one;
• choose one person to record all ideas on a flipchart so that everyone can see them and a record exists; and
• after a brainstorming session, critically screen the list of ideas for four or five consistent items or themes. Also, if brainstorming has been done in smaller groups, identify similar issues from the lists of individual groups. Finally, develop this short list of ideas into options for decisions.

Managing Conflict

Conflict arises in meetings. You might assume conflict is negative, but it can be helpful leading to innovation, positive change or agreement when discussing an issue. It is important to remember that disagreement is necessary to the process of group decision making. The chairperson may have to resolve conflict in a meeting in order to reach an acceptable decision.

The following are steps that are useful in resolving conflict:

1. Recognize that there is conflict and identify the issue causing the disagreement.
2. Collect all information relating to the conflict, share it and assess it.
3. Propose possible solutions, including the consequences of the proposals.
4. Find a mutually acceptable resolution without coercion.
5. Carry out the agreement and evaluate its effectiveness, with all parties sharing in the evaluation.

If a meeting does get out of hand, take a short break. When the meeting reconvenes, the chair can summarize the discussion up to the point of conflict or have opposing sides summarize their respective positions. The chairperson can then attempt to lead the two opposing sides in negotiating a solution.

Related articles

• Participants produce many Ideas (management-me.com)
• Brainstorming Or Blamestorming? (kumardeepak.wordpress.com)
• How to make SMART choices (ch3rylannekannemey3r.wordpress.com)
• Brainstorming – Increasing Creativity and the Quantity and Usefulness of Ideas (nextstepconsult.wordpress.com)
• Making decisions (newlifeparties.com)

Close your eyes and picture the Zen-like state of your desk in a paperless world. When you need data from the last quarter, you speak to your computer and a soothing voice responds with the information. When it’s time to pay the bills, you instruct your computer where the payments are to come from.

Now, look at the paper sitting on your desk, dressers, tables, shelves, filing cabinets, etc.

The ideal of a paperless office has been around for at least three decades. While individuals, such as Eric Mack, experiment with paperless solutions, or online services offer paperless solutions, paper usage has increased significantly.

In 2003, Canadians used a whopping 2, 867,442 tonnes of paper, compared with 1,198,100 tonnes two decades earlier. Source: CBC News

For whatever reason, you’re stuck working with paper. Here are some tips for managing your piles (paper, that is).

1. Keep only the work at hand visible. If you’re working on the month-end report, have it in front of you. Other pending work should be stored in some form of filing system, which makes it easy to retrieve, but keeps it out of sight.
2. Have a fixed time each day to process routine paperwork. There are regular systems that dump a daily amount of paper on our desks: mail, filing, circulating files, etc. Set aside a few minutes every day to make sure this paper dealt with and not left piling up on your desk.
3. Keep large wastebasket and/or shredder near your work area. Some percentage of the paper you process can go straight to recycling or garbage: used envelopes, advertising brochures, last week’s cafeteria menu. Toss it immediately.
4. Don’t use a bulletin board. It’s a burial ground. I have a bulletin board in my office, but I am ruthless about what gets pinned to it. If you can’t be consistently ruthless, don’t put one on the wall.
5. Organize your stationery. If you have to keep blank stationery on hand, get some type of storage system. Not only does lose stationery add to the cluttered look, it ends up dog-eared, frayed and unusable.
6. Get a notebook. Resist the urge to take notes on dozens of pieces of scrap paper, notepads and sticky notes. Find a notebook that works for you and keep it with you at all times. That way, not only will you have a single, neat source of all your notes, you’ll only have one place you have to look to find information.

It doesn’t look like paper is going away anytime soon. You will need to have systems to control your paper flow.

Whether it’s time to get away from the office on vacation or business takes us on the road, the influx of email or phones messages rarely stops.

A little bit of preparation before you leave will ensure less to worry about on return. A good out-of-office message is a must. A well-prepared message can go a long way to decrease the backlog of messages waiting for you when you get back to work.

A good out of office message has three parts:

1. Dates of your absence. Let the contact know when you are out of the office. It helps them decide what their next step is going to be; whether to wait for your return or to direct their request elsewhere.
2. Reason for absence. I like to let my contacts know whether I am on a business trip or vacation. A business trip means I am connected to the office in some way and might be able to respond to a message. If I’m on vacation, I’m out of contact range.
3. Who to contact in your absence. I try and leave contact information for alternate contacts when I am out of the office; a minimum of one up to as many as are needed.

Just because you leave an out-of-office message, it doesn’t mean that you have communicated to the sender. There are three things you should keep in mind when composing the message. It should be:

• Complete: give all the detail necessary. Don’t say, “I’m out of the office” or “I’m gone for two weeks.” Make it precise. “I am away from the office starting July 1 and will be back July 15. The same applies to your alternate contacts. Let the sender know who to contact and how to get a hold of them.
• Concise: keep it as short as possible while still making it complete. Use short, bulleted phrases. People don’t want to be able to read a novel during your out-of-office reply.
• Clear: make sure it’s easy to understand. Don’t use abbreviations, job titles or internal jargon that will not be understood by everyone sending you a message.

Rather that coming back to a packed e-mail in-box and a full voice-mail box, spend a few minutes crafting a useful out-of-office message and people will be able to redirect or park tasks appropriately.

Make it easy to contact specific groups of people by keeping and abbreviated list of contact information. E.g., all department members or a project team. Use the “group’ feature in your e-mail client to define a group of people as message recipients or to sort contacts by category.

Whether we like it or not, paperless systems are slow reaching mass acceptance. Unless you work for a company that has invested in paperless processes, you likely see loads of paper coming across your desk.

How do you deal with it? You could explore a personal paperless system. However, if that’s not workable for you right now, make sure you have a good filing system in place.

When building you system, consider these factors:

• Don’t be too logical. It’s your system, and no one else will be using it. It only needs to make sense toyou.
• Keep it simple. Use a limited number of categories. You may find the these five to be adequate:
  • Projects - files with information related to different projects you are working on.
  • Instant Tasks - folders on little jobs to fill in your time when you have a few minutes. Perhaps low priority letters to be answered, or general interest articles.
  • Self-Development- folders related to training: books, articles, etc.
  • Ideas - items you wish to investigate further to improve your operation.
  • Reference Information - a resource for different things you are involved with. Keep separate folders by topic and refer to them when you need statistics, examples, quotations, etc.
• Colour code you files. Use colours to highlight priorities within each category to draw attention toyour most important items. This is easily accomplished by using different color highlighters and marking individual folders.
• Schedule a regular filing time. Keep your filing current so time won’t be wasted searching for an item.
• Purge! Clean your files periodically to keep the volume of material to an essential minimum. This also will reduce time going through files when you are looking for something.

Related articles

• Doctape wants to make your office paperless (venturebeat.com)
• Why I Went Paperless (Contributed Post by Evernote Ambassador Jamie Rubin) (evernote.com)
• How I Started My Paperless New Year (lifehack.org)
• How To Go Paperless – A Beginner’s Guide To Escaping The Paper Prison (chicipad.com)

There are few statements I make with absolute certainty, but it is safe to say, I’m a terrible golfer.

One of my bad habits is griping the club too tightly. If your grip is too tight, you have less control over the club and its speed. That means the ball goes everywhere but where you want. Trust me, I have water hazards full of experience.

Hanging on to anything tightly reduces the amount of control you have. Try grabbing a cat.

Your ability to control is proportionate to your ability to relax. If you’re negotiating with me and you’re tied to your position, I can control the situation. The grip you have on your position is going to slow you down as you try and react to my counter proposals.

It’s the same thing with your to-do list. You’re working on the year-end report that was due last week, the phone is ringing, e-mail is coming in and the boss is assigning new projects. The natural response is to tighten up and try and hold on to control of the sitaution.

Relax!

David Allen uses the analogy, “mind like water”. If you throw a stone into a pond how does it react? You don’t hear, “Oh, my bottom’s already covered with stones,” or “I need to calculate the displacement of this stone,” or “How big a splash should I make?”. The water reacts in proportion to the size of the stone and then relaxes back to its normal surface.

To be in control, you need systems that can help you absorb new demands and then relax to your previous state of doing. When stuff comes over your horizon, you need to be able to refocus on it quickly, put it into a system that you are comfortable with, knowing it will be looked after in the proper place and time.

Between meetings, to-do lists, preparing supper, shopping and driving the kids, how do you remember all you have to do? David Allen says that your brain is not the most efficient memory tool and it will only trust systems that it knows works. Good memory recall is as simple as finding those things that will jog your brain at the time it needs to remember.

Here are 10 easy tricks to jog your memory:

1. Write it down - My number one favourite trick: carry a notebook, have good lists, etc. I carry a small 2 X 4 inch notepad and a Pilot G-2 Mini pen in my wallet. That way, no matter where I am, I can write a quick note to process later.
2. Record it - Use a dictation machine or MP3 recorder to grab your thoughts. When you’re behind the wheel of the car, writing a note would not be safe, let alone convenient. A hand-held recorder lets you record things as they occur to you. When you get home, or back to the office, you can transcribe the recorded notes into your tracking system.
3. Call yourself - If you’re at the office and want a reminder when you get home, call your home phone and leave a message. Also, as a variation on trick number two, you could also leave recorded messages via cell phone if you didn’t have a hand-held recorder.
4. Send yourself an e-mail - This trick can work a couple of ways. You can use it in much the same way as calling yourself. I will often send a quick e-mail from home to work as a reminder of something I can only do from the office or during work hours. As well, most calendar software or services can send a reminder of a scheduled event via e-mail. When you enter calendar data, use the settings that send an e-mail reminder.
5. Use sticky notes - My wife’s favourite is the sticky note. She keeps them everywhere. She writes her errand list on a note and sticks it to the dashboard of the car as a reminder. Bathroom mirrors, fridge doors, outside doors and briefcases are all fair game for one of her sticky reminders.
6. Have a place, place for things - Those things that need “regular” remembering -car keys, wallet, glasses, cell phone, etc.- are easy to recall if they are in the same place every time. Hang your keys by the door. Take them from the hook as you leave and hang them up as soon as you return. Dresser tops, purses, briefcases, hooks are all good places to keep those things you need frequently.
7. Set timers and alarms - Use audible reminders for short-term recall. They’re not just for baking. If you have to call someone back in a half hour, set an alarm on you computer or cell phone to jog your memory in 30 minutes. If you have 30 minutes to enjoy a coffee before leaving the house for a concert, set the alarm to remind you.
8. Self-motivate - Instead of saying, “I’ll probably forget.” Tell yourself that you’re going to remember. A positive mental approach goes a long way to stimulating your mind.
9. Visualize - Some personal development involves a bigger sort of reminder. If you’re trying to lose 20 pounds, you need to “remember” your goal and the process. Stick a picture of a skinny person on the fridge. Write your desired weight and target date on the picture. That will help you to remember to  ignore the ice cream and eat some fruit instead.
10. Keep Healthy - Make sure you’re getting enough sleep, that you are exercising and eating balance meals. All of these things contribute to keeping your memory working well.

The first five tricks are concrete tools to which you can refer to help recall. The second five are more mental in nature, stimulating your brain to make its best effort. Together, these tricks should keep you from forgetting, not only the urgent things that can control your thoughts and time, but the important things that will improve your life.

Is your email killing your productivity? Then it’s time for some basic e-mail management. With a few simple steps, you can maintain control over your in-box:

1. Use the software: Set up your e-mail client to manage as much of the incoming mail as possible. Create filters to route unnecessary messages past your in-box and into a folder. Make sure your spam settings and databases are active and up to date. The more you automate your e-mail, the less time you spend reading and deleting.
2. Turn off your new mail notification: You don’t have to read every piece of e-mail the moment it arrives. Pop-ups, beeps and “you’ve got mail” notifications can be too distracting to ignore. Turn them off!
3. Don’t read and respond to each incoming message: Dealing with each e-mail as it arrives can create constant interruption to your work-flow. Set aside time each day where you deal with your e-mail. Have a process —such as this one— for clearing your in-box.
4. Manage e-mail during times of lower energy: Don’t deal with e-mail during your most creative or productive times of the day. Processing e-mail doesn’t require much energy. Don’t waste your creative periods on something as routine as e-mail.

1. Understand the value of your time: We may all value our time differently, but we all have the same number of minutes in a day. Once they are lost, they are gone forever.
2. Plan: You don’t plan failure, but you have to plan for success.
3. Do tomorrow’s planning today: Don’t wait until you’re in the middle of the day to figure out what you need to accomplish. Determine that before the day starts.
4. Identify your “prime time:” What part of the day do you have more or less energy? Plan high-energy or low-energy tasks accordingly.
5. Work from an action list: Create lists from which to work.
6. Schedule tasks as needed. Check off completed items. Revise the list as needed.
7. Ask yourself, “Why am I doing what I’m doing right now?” and ask it often: Always evaluate what you are doing to ensure the most productive use of your time.
8. “Delete” whenever possible: Eliminate clutter, file the completed, delegate wisely, learn to say NO.
9. Check your calendar: Have a good system to track time-sensitive events.
10. Be flexible: Have the ability to accommodate the unforeseen. Sometimes the urgent will have to override the planned.
11. Take a day off now and again: Have days for unplanned relaxation and spontaneous activity.

You’ve got a full hour between meetings. Plenty of time to put the finishing touches on the month end staffing report. You pull up the spreadsheet, print off your boss’s e-mailed comments, dig out your notes from the last meeting and settle down to work. No sooner do you start to enter data, than Jane wanders in, sits down and asks if you’ve heard the latest rumour about Bob down in purchasing. Before you know it, your full hour has dwindled to 17 minutes.

Controlling drop-in visitors who interrupt your workflow requires both tact and judgement. The office culture where you work can have considerable influence on this practice. If yours is an organization that encourages less-formal communication, you may find people dropping by to discuss anything from last night’s big game to next week’s big presentation.

For those days when you need a block of uninterrupted time to work on a project, here are five tips to help you control drop-in traffic.

1. Be the visitor. If you have to speak with someone, go to their office. That way, you can control the length of the visit. When your done, excuse yourself and leave.
2. Turn away from the door. If your work space is arranged so that you sit with your back to the door, visitors can see that you are working and they might be less likely to disturb you.
3. Close the door. If you have a door. This isn’t workable in a cube farm. In that case, you might have to resort to the Les Nessman solution.
4. Stand up for visitors. If a visitor comes into your office, stand up to greet them and don’t invite them to sit down. This will often shorten the length of their visit.
5. Tell them politely. If you’re busy at the moment, ask them to come back. Set a specific appointment time if necessary.

The most extreme solution I’ve ever come across was someone who sawed an inch off the front legs of the chairs in his office. Trying to keep from sliding off required just enough effort to discourage people from staying long. With a little courtesy and the above steps, you shouldn’t have to resort to such drastic measures.