Before you can start managing your time, you have to analyse how it’s being used.

Keep a log of your daily activities for 2–3 weeks. Once you have a fair representation of your regular time usage, ask yourself the following three questions for each of the items in your log.

1. Does it need to be done? Just because the weekly sales report has been produced for the past 10 years doesn’t mean that you need to keep generating the data. Perhaps you’re duplicating work being done by another department. Are all your tasks necessary? Are there things you can eliminate because they do not add value?
2. Do I need to do it? Once you’ve created your list of necessary tasks, decide if you should be doing them. If a regular sales report is needed, perhaps an assistant can prepare the information. Put your delegating skills to work.
3. Does the process need to be improved? Now that you’ve pared things down to the essentials, this is the time to look at efficiency. Do the meeting minutes need to be prepared, printed, collated, staples and distributed to committee members? Can the minutes be handled by an e-mail attachment or better yet, posted to some form of groupware? Perhaps you are producing a brochure when you have an in-house desktop publisher? Are you making the best use of tools and processes.

Working through needs 1 and 2 should go a long way to reducing the tasks that are not necessary or not necessary for you. Need 3 will ensure the remaining responsibilities are handled with the most efficient processes and tools. Once you’ve completed this analyses, you can move on to making sure your organizing system captures the tasks and gets them done on time.

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Workers who tweet, chat, like, and Skype on the job are among the most productive, according to new academic research from Warwick University in the U.K.

The advent of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and smartphones means people are connected in a multitude of ways leading some critics to believe it is affecting workers’ concentration span and ability to analyse in detail, with some firms even banning the use of social media.

But a study of leading technology companies in the UK, Finland and Germany by Professor Joe Nandhakumar has found that the myriad ways of communicating allows people to be more flexible about when and where they work and more effective.

Nandhakumar said: “We found that the ubiquitous digital connectivity altered workers’ sense of ‘presence’ and helped rather than hindered the effective completion of collective tasks.”

This study also indicates that such digital connectivity afforded workers much greater latitude and control over their timing and location of their work.

Professor Nandhakumar found that employees who used various types of social media and digital modes of communication were more creative and collaborative at work, and thus more productive.

Professor Nandhakumar added: “The amount of information now at the fingertips of the modern office worker should not mean they are overloaded, but empowered.

Evidence from our research suggests that knowledge workers who were able to successfully deal with the timing and sequence of their ‘presence’ and responses in a digitally mediated workplace were better able to organise the flow of work through digital media.”

Companies and organisations should make sure their workers can control the flow of information, turning it on and off when needed.

There is a growing body of evidence which suggests that instead of adopting uncritically popular views of digital connectivity as something disruptive, organisations should instead investigate further,” said Professor Nandhakumar, who has worked with Ford and Nestle.

They should explore how employees can be better equipped and empowered to manage their time and productivity in this environment.”

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I remember a supervisor at one of my first jobs picking up on a number of silly mistakes I had made and saying, “I don’t think it’s that you’re careless, I think you couldn’t care less.” She was right. There were a dozen things grabbing my attention and the job wasn’t one of them. It’s easy for productivity or the quality of work to suffer if the job is not grabbing your interest. However, there are some things you can do if you find a care-less attitude preventing you from doing your job.

1. Look for creative ways to make your current tasks more interesting. For example, you might be able to take certain tasks outside the office —say, to a coffee shop— and complete them, without the usual office distractions.
2. See if it is possible to trade or share tasks with a coworker One person’s tedium is another’s challenge. You might hate number-crunching in a spreadsheet, while a co-worker hates writing documents. Trading tasks could address the attitude problems for two or more employees.
3. Ask for more challenging responsibilities. Job boredom often comes from not having enough to do. Adding responsibilities can make an old job seem fresh and new.
4. Schedule your work to best manage routine or tedious tasks. Most jobs have some parts that are less desirable than others. Making use of scheduling to optimize the completion of such parts. You can group low-energy tasks together and schedule them for a time when your work energy is low. You might alternate tedious tasks with challenging tasks giving some balance to the day.
5. Look for a new job. In the end, if you can’t make the changes necessary to stimulate you current situation, perhaps it’s time for a job change; either an internal move, a position in a new organization or a career re-direction.

Don’t stand by and let boredom hold you back. Grab a hold of opportunities to make your work more interesting.

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Some time ago a magazine writer asked me a probing question. She asked, “In your opinion and experience, what are the three most destructive things a leader can do to wreck an organization?” Actually, it’s a profound question with many possible significant answers. I considered both effective and ineffective leaders I had encountered in my business experience. I pondered what could be, in my opinion, the three worst things a leader could do. Although many different things came to mind, I settled on three attributes that I had personally observed, or been subjected to, as being most destructive from a strategic point of view. It was necessary to discount numerous tactical behaviors that may appear destructive at the moment, but in the large scheme pale by comparison to the more strategic negative behaviors.

A few of the leadership behaviors I considered before I gave my final answers included such things as poor communication skills, poor delegation skills, poor team building skills, too much tactical thinking, poor coaching skills, poor empowerment skills, and poor feedback skills. Any of these behaviors could be the three worst leadership behaviors, but I opted instead for things that I had personally observed as being highly destructive to not only people, but also to things, activities and processes.

My three answers were: 1) Personal Arrogance, 2) Inflexible Position, and 3) a belief in Self-Resolution. Inasmuch as these three attributes constitute a wide range of specific behaviors, permit me to describe each one in more detail.

1. Personal Arrogance. Another way to describe arrogance is pride. Although there are clearly good aspects of being proud, pride can also be a handicap to effective leadership. First, let’s look at the good side of pride. Leaders, managers and individual contributors can take pride in their job, an assignment, a task, or even a procedure. And such pride can be a motivator to perform well, thoroughly, and with a high degree of quality. So taking pride in one’s job can be a positive attribute for any worker.

But unfortunately, there is a negative side to personal pride that I call unhealthy pride. When a person uses pride to the determent of others, then it can be a destructive rather than positive trait. Ezra Taft Benson said, “The proud make [people] their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents or any other device against others.” In the words of C.S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next [person]. It is the comparison that makes [a person] proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition [or comparison] has gone, pride has gone.” So at the heart of unhealthy pride is judging oneself as superior to others.

The truth is that pride is often a liability that people often see in other people, long before they are willing to admit that it exists in themselves. This makes the proud unteachable, untouchable, and often unreachable when it comes to leadership development. Excessive pride in a leader can create executive isolation and insulation where lines of communication are disrupted at the most, or faulty at the least.

It is executive pride and the lack of personal humility that causes a leader to be convinced that his or her decisions are infallible and unchallengeable. Over time this creates in an organization a climate of fear, blind obedience and compartmentalization. Organizational compartmentalization occurs when workers feel most safe with their chin on their chest doing only what is necessary to keep from being disciplined or fired. There is in this dysfunctional climate no creativity, empowerment, risk taking, or free speech. Decision quality is, therefore, very poor. Chin on chest mentality negates the possibility of employees thinking or acting in a strategic manner.

2. Inflexible Position. I currently teach leadership development workshops for several clients. Within these courses is a module titled, “Flexible Leadership.” The primary learning point of the module is helping leaders understand that “one size does not fit all.” People are individuals and situations are situational. So when a leader approaches a situation in an organization he or she must demonstrate enough flexibility of position and ability to treat each person and situation differently. Rigid thinking and inflexible positions typically shut down lines of communication.

It’s surprising how many leaders become dogmatic with their personal opinions, preferences and biases and as a result struggle with flexibility and adaptability. This might relate to unhealthy personal pride, or it could be insecurity, or it might even be inexperience. Whatever the cause, holding fast to an opinion or belief in the face of unconsidered different courses of action seriously limits decision quality. We know from mountains of evidence that decision quality usually follows a path of divergent thinking, following by facilitated convergent thinking. Stated another way, the best idea usually follows many considered ideas. Conversely, the worst idea often follows a leader’s unwillingness to consider the ideas of others.

3. Problem Self-Resolution. Several years ago a large portion of my consulting practice was helping organizations implement a system of process improvement. While assisting literally hundreds of functional and cross-functional teams as they endeavored to create and modify organizational processes, I observed an all too often tendency of some leaders who were supposed to empower the teams. These ineffective sponsors of teams had a belief that if a problem was left alone long enough that it might spontaneously fix itself. Some of these leaders clearly lacked enough courage to confront broken processes and uncooperative employees. Others just didn’t want to upset the apple cart, so they would drag their heels in challenging and motivating teams.

Jack Welch said, “Leaders must face reality as it is and not as they may have constructed it.” The reality is that very few organizational process problems ever fix themselves to an effective level. Rather, most problems dealing with people and processes typically get worse over time, not better. Indeed, sometimes problems may go on vacation for a short time and give the appearance of being resolved, but a few weeks later they crop back up with even more steam.

Effective leaders must have the courage and ability to recognize problems when they occur, acknowledge that they need to be resolved, and work diligently to make them go away. Anything less than that will add fuel to the fire and the problems will grow into major disruptions.

Summary

I am unaware of what happened to the information I gave to the writer who asked for my list of the worst leader behaviors. Perhaps it ended up in a book, leadership development class, article, or trashcan, I don’t know. Nonetheless, the exercise of deciding on three negative attributes gave me an opportunity to consider not only good leader behaviors, but also the bad ones as well.

Perhaps the lesson in this article is to ask the following questions: “Am I guilty of any of these ineffective behaviors? Do I diligently create a climate for my followers that is open, honest, positive, motivating, and beneficial to both people and the organization? Am I willing to self-assess my effectiveness and make appropriate changes?” Give it some thought and tell me what you think.

Dr. Richard L. Williams is a business consultant specializing in leadership development, organizational development/diagnostics, performance coaching, quality improvement, and team development. If you would like to learn more about Leadership Development, contact Dr. Rick Williams or the CMOE team or contact us at 888-262-2499.

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You should work to manage of your incoming data with the fewest possible moves; including e-mail, voice mail, real-time phone calls and regular mail. It’s doesn’t take long for incoming data to constantly demand your attention and drain your day. Good workplace habits come from working smart and with control.

If you receive new e-mails and voice mails all day long, schedule a couple of times per day to check them. (E.G., first thing in the morning and right after lunch.) Read or listen to messages and determine their priority; particularly with regard to current schedules. If necessary or appropriate, send off a prompt answer (promising follow-up, when required).

• E-mail
  • Use the two-minute rule to process your e-mail. If it takes less than two minutes to answer a message, do it then file or delete the message.
  • Use folders to organize messages.
  • IMMEDIATELY delete any messages you do not need to keep.
  • Use follow-up flags or dated calendar alarms to bring forward e-mail when it needs attention.
• Voice Mail
  • Review your voice messages, take notes and delete them.
  • Respond to those that fit the two-minute rule.
  • Schedule the others for follow-up, as appropriate.
• Postal mail
  • Open your post once a day.
  • Toss the junk or the unneeded paper into the bin.
  • Use the two-minute rule.
  • File those that are just for information. Delegate what you can. Place in rest in a follow-up system, so that it comes to your attention, when you need it and not before.

Finally, don’t get into the habit of reading every e-mail, as it arrives, or even answering the phone every time it rings. Answer calls from people you are waiting for. Otherwise, use voice mail. Your goal is to have systems in place to ensure that you manage incoming communication within your schedule, rather than letting it manage or even overwhelm your schedule.

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One of the fundamental tools for time management is that list of things you need to get done. It consolidates all your tasks in one place. From there you can prioritize them and tackle the important ones first.

There are 5 key advantages to maintaining a to-do list:

A to-do list doesn’t forget

Your brain is not the most efficient memory tool and 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. Having a written list helps us remember when things have do be done so we do not miss anything.

A to-do list helps you set priorities

Making a to-do list is an important first step but prioritizing that list ensures that you focus on the most important items rather than giving in to the temptation of working on less important items because they may stand out more or because they are easier to do. Once you have a list of the things you need to complete, set priorities and decide which jobs should be done first.

A to-do list lets you coordinate similar tasks

A to-do list helps us to avoid repetition of labour. For example, if we have to deliver a document at an office and collect a document from another office which is on the same block, both these tasks can be done together.

A load of time is lost in the starting, stopping and changing of different levels or types of activity. Save time by performing like tasks together. Make all your outgoing phone calls at the same time; organize your errands into a single run; reply to e-mail; etc. You will find this a more efficient use of your time.

A to-do list tracks your progress

Using a to-do list enables you to mark off the tasks you have completed. At the end of the day, when you look at the list, it will give you a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. It might also have the effect of waking you up if nothing has been marked completed.

A to-do list makes it easy to carry-over tasks

If anything remains incomplete at the end of the day, it can be carried over to tomorrow’s list. This is an easy way of preparing a to-do list for the next day; by examining the to-do list of today and carrying forward any task that is incomplete.

When we talk about preparing a to-do list, there are a couple of helpful points to remember:

The to-do list should be realistic.

Don’t include more on your list than can be accomplished in a day. Projects that will take weeks or months to complete should be organized and tracked in a different way.

Prepare more than just daily to-do lists.

Regular tasks can occur on a monthly cycle: e.g., paying bills. You can create date-based lists that will remind you to complete task which are regular, but not frequent. A calendar is the easiest place to track such a list.

A to-do list can be as simple or as complex as you need. Write down the tasks that you have to complete, break large tasks into component steps, assign priorities to each item and get to work.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

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How to Win Friends and Influence People is the grand-daddy of all people-skills books. First published in 1937, it was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. The book still carries a lot of weight. BNET includes on its list of 10 Underrated Business Books and it is one of the books on The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List.

Carnegie believed success, came from 15 percent knowledge and 85 percent ”the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people.” He teaches these skills through principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated.

The book gives tips and strategies for communicating with people. In contrast with some modern theories of psychology, which emphasize autonomy, self-expression and assertiveness, Carnegie believed that pleasing others is both a duty and a route to personal success.

Here is Dale Carnegie’s summary outline of the book:

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six ways to make people like you

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Win people to your way of thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

A leader’s job often includes changing your people’s attitudes and behaviour. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

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If you want your speech to be lively and appealing, these are four key steps you need to apply as you prepare your speech. If you write a speech before delivering, use these four tips as a part of editing your first draft. If you prefer to speak from an outline, practice your talk keeping these principles in mind.

1.  Use Short Words

People find short words easier to understand than long words; especially when spoken. Short words can carry more force in a statement. Even Shakespeare knew the benefit of short words: “Out, out damned spot.” “I come to bury Ceaser, not to praise him.” “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio.”

For the most part, use words you would use in everyday conversation. Review your draft and replace as many long words as you can, with short words.

2. Use Short Sentences

Short sentences have the same effect on understanding as short words. Make your sentences short and to the point.

This is generally easy to fix. After preparing a draft of your speech, go back and break the long sentences into shorter parts.

3. Use Personal Words

Words such as: you, me I, they, we will make a talk more direct and add some informality. Audiences respond to the personal much better. They want to know how what you are saying applies to them.

Instead of asking in general, “How would a person respond?” make it specific. Ask, “How would you respond?”

4. Save the Humour for the End

No, not the end of the speech, but the end of the preparation. Unless you’re performing stand-up comedy, the jokes are secondary to your speech. I’ve listened to too many speeches where the jokes did not support the point of the talk. They seemed to be thrown in because somewhere along the line, the speaker heard, “good speakers tell jokes.”

Make sure that you have laid the foundation of your speech and are covering all you need to say. Then, go back and add any appropriate humour to enhance your presentation.

Four simple keys. Apply them as you prepare and edit your speech and you find audiences keen to listen to what you have to say.

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As much as you would like to avoid it, there’s no getting away from having to wait. You wait on hold on the telephone, wait for meetings and appointments, wait for hockey practice to end, a spouse to finish work, and wait and wait and wait. Waiting can eat up a fair portion of your time. Good time management puts waiting time to use.

Whether at the office, out and about, or at home, here are seven ways to make use of waiting time:

• Work your lists: Check your to-do lists, your shopping lists or other reminders; add, subtract or rearrange, as necessary.
• Work your calendar: If you’re not on the phone, set-up, confirm or reschedule items on your calendar.
• Sort mail: E-mail, paper mail —whether at work or at home— can be organized while on the phone or watching T.V.
• Personal/professional development: Read an industry journal or a school assignment. Carry a media player and listen to speakers, trainers or podcasts.
• Use the phone: If you’re not waiting on the phone, use the time to make or return calls.
• Work on hobbies: Carry needlework with you. If you draw, carry a sketch book. Carry a digital camera and snap off a few pictures.
• Structured relaxing: It doesn’t have to be all about efficiency; read a book, solve a crossword puzzle, or play a game on your smartphone.

Make it a practice to carry your “tools” with you and you’ll find you never have to sit twiddling your thumbs while you wait.

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