The most effective development tool you’ll ever use is a simple one: a list.
Part one of this post gave you a basic strategy for multiple list building designed to help you get out of the ineffective list building habit. In this second part, I will show you the lists that I personally keep everyday. My lists four main lists keep me on track for my progress, and give me clues to when I’m not progressing like I should so, so that I can fix my focus. I have owned a PDA or smart phone since college, so I have become accustomed to keeping my lists with me for instant review or editing for almost 20 years.
My first list is what I call my Daily Journal. This list is literally a place to jot down everything that I do throughout my day from the moment I wake up to the time I turn out the lights to go to sleep. My Daily Journal allows me to figure out exactly what I have accomplished on days when I know I have worked hard, but end up tired and frustrated because there were no obvious returns from my efforts. It also helps me keep up with the progress of my personal and my professional goals, along with keeping a eye on my health with notes for checking my blood sugar, the meals and snacks I eat, and whatever exercise I can squeeze in. I even use my Daily Journal to help compile a weekly review document of myself I call my Weekly Wrap-Up Log (which is why I have found the electronic method of keeping a journal much easier that carrying and recording in a paper bound journal, despite my love for Moleskine notebooks).
My second list is a basic listing I create every night of things I need to work on the next day, which I call my Daily Dozens. I came up with the name as I was working on creating a product on making lists, and thought it sounded catchy, and that ten spots were never really enough on my personal list. In fact, twelve spots is often not enough, as I’ll find I have accomplished additional things that happened to spring up on me throughout the course of a work day that turn out to be fairly important. Because of this, I have the right to add to this list as many more tasks completed throughout the day as I choose (normally no more that 16). Throughout the day, I mark off the tasks I have worked on with significant progress (but not necessarily completed). This list shows me my task priorities as I say they are, and ultimately what I actually focused on completing.
My third list is my 30 Minutes A Day Log. I created a document that covers the Four P’s of Life Management, with the key to devote at least 30 minutes a day to each P: TO PLAN, TO PLAY, TO PONDER, and TO PAUSE. It is with this log that I keep track of how well I am accomplishing my progress in life management, where some days are much better than others.
My forth list is what I call my Running Notepad, and it doesn’t fall in line with the normal concepts of lists. My Running Notepad is just a file that I use to put down any random idea that pops into my head that I think I will be able to do something with later. I have been carrying little notebooks for ideas since middle school, and the process just got a little more organized (and easier to transcribe) when I started doing more note taking in my PDAs and smart phones. I also use a service called Jott that allows me to leave a verbal note that gets transcribed for me to move into my Running Notepad file if my hands are not available. I am also trying to get the hang of the new Google Voice for recording and transcribing important phone interviews.
The most effective development tool you’ll ever use is a simple one: a list.
While the concept and the proper use of a list are for most people fairly basic, there are some who have taken the art of list building and have turned themselves in the Mozarts and Picassos of productivity and effectiveness. But the majority of us just scribble down a bunch of things and then easily forgets the reason for the list, or the list completely.
In part one of this post, I will show you a basic strategy for multiple list building that should help you get out of the ineffective list building habit. Part two will go in depth into the personal lists that I keep everyday that help me monitor my progress, or can at least alert me when progress is not being made.
Step one is to have a place of prominence to place your list once you’ve created it. Your desk is a fine spot for putting your list…if you don’t allow stuff to pile up on your desk and cover your list. Your list needs to live in a place where you will constantly have access to it. If your kitchen is a high traffic area for you, place it on the refrigerator. If your bedroom is your personal haven, put up a cork board or dry erase board so that you can put your list there. If you carry a smart phone, you can have your list always at your fingertips by keeping up with it in note form on your phone.
Step two is to name your list. Title your list so that it has a purpose (grocery list, tasks for work, Christmas gifts, steps for global domination, etc.) and only put items on the list that fit into that category. If you have a need or a task that doesn’t fit on the list you are currently building, figure out what purpose that need or task has, and make a new list with a new title that fits that purpose.
Step three is to limit your list. While the things you need to do may seem limitless, your capacity to get them done is limited by time, energy, and whatever resources you actually have available to you. Force a number on yourself to stop listing, and if you have more items then slots, eliminate the least important items. When you clear off enough items to make space on a particular list, add the missing items to the list.
Your News Releases Need Work: Emailing Bad News Releases
After receiving a tweet from a friend asking for news release help last week, followed by was seemed like an entire day of emptying my email inbox of bad news releases, I figure it was time I took another shot and explaining the art of getting your release at least looked at, and hopefully used.
I want to attack the problems I dealt with yesterday:
Assume We Don’t Have The Latest & Greatest: Last Friday, I learned that according to Forrester Research, 60 percent of companies use Internet Explorer 6 as their default browser. That was the day I stopped whining to my IT folks about why we were using the old & busted browser of the past. Today I plead to all the PR folks to sent thinks out in the future. Web pages with lots of flash widget and browser optimized settings can not trump a simple webpage with a clean overall look and images set to just enough that it means something. My 5 year old office desktop running Windows 2000 would appreciate it.
Assume We Don’t Have The Latest & Greatest Part 2: As with the case in an office where I am running Windows 2000 for heavy audio editing, we’re also short on licenses for MS Office. ANY version of MS Office, let alone the latest and greatest. Assume that the person on the computer on the other end may be in the same boat, and don’t send them word docs typed on your brand new, shiny Vista computer with converting them down from .docx to .doc. Even better, try .rtf or a .pdf, both which are universal, and for the latter, you don’t have to worry about a change in font shifting the entire press release.
Images Can Ruin Everything: Our web based corporate email system allows every user in the corporation 20MB or storage space, unless you’ve been with the company over 8 years, whet they may be stuck with the old cap of 10MB. Not a serious problem for those who have machines with the MS Office suite and MS Outlook. I don’t have that luxury, and had to dump my email twice yesterday, after receiving an attached .mp3 from a new artist (5MB) and a two press releases from the same person because he forgot to attach a picture to the document (2MB for first email with large corporate logo, 8MB for email with large corporate logo and 7MB hi-res headshot in .docx press release). Sending news releases with links to download media, scaling down large images to travel reasonably through email, or just sending a .pdf would have made life much easier for me, the one you are trying to influence to cover your people and events.
As managers and business leaders we all have faced the age old dilemma of whether to hire or not to hire new staff. Indeed, this question presents a weighty set of issues. On one side of the scale are all of the benefits a company hopes to gain by hiring more staff. On the other side of the scale are all of the concerns that either prevent hiring or result in limited training time for new employees.
This article will show managers that training new employees does not drain time and resources and that with a little effort they can tip the scales in favor of business growth.
A thorough hiring process prevents unforeseen costs of training new employees. Spending time and resources upfront on vetting potential candidates insures that the individuals you hire fit the mold of your organization. In the long run, the initial costs of hiring will pay for themselves because an employee who quickly becomes a seamless part of the infrastructure requires less training and yields productivity more rapidly.
Once you have hired a new employee, you do not need to complete all aspects of their training immediately. Keep in mind that business development occurs over time not overnight. Managers who avoid the rush to train employees give themselves the time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the employee. Moreover, managers can then develop a training program specific to that employee's needs. As such, your company avoids excess expenditures on unnecessary training. At the same time, you are putting the money where it counts: in training designed to improve upon an employee's weaknesses.
Every expenditure made towards training a new employee does not translate into a cost for your company. On the job training, where new hires shadow their managers, permits managers to teach good business practices simply by performing their daily tasks. For example, good listening skills are critical to maintaining clientele. Permit your new hires to watch you engage in meetings with clients and have a discussion over lunch with your employee about what the employee took away from the meeting. Then at the next client meeting, let your new hire take the lead on engaging the client. A short feedback session following the client meeting should put your employee on the right track. This on the job training permits the employee to learn from actual experience rather than costly off site training programs. A little time investment was the only calculable cost.
Employees also can assume an active role in their own training. A system that requires employees to check in with their supervisors is more efficient than one that relies on managers to do the checking in. The former permits employees more flexibility to expand upon their interests in the company and more room for innovation. An employee driven system also relieves managers of the burden of overseeing every assignment managers give to their employees. Ultimately, the employee-driven system means that companies avoid unnecessary redirection of managerial time and resources.
Mentor programs provide a vehicle for teamwork and afford new employees a constant avenue for help. A mentor is a senior or mid-level employee who assumes the work of acclimating new employees. Without mentor programs, managers and supervisors will spend inordinate amounts of time training new employees and showing new employees the ropes. A mentor program, however, allows managers to pass off the task of training to a mentor who is equally as capable of indoctrinating the new employee. In fact, mentors often are in a better position to provide the necessary structure and guidance for new employees because mentors are still a part of the employee cadre. As such, new employees can learn by shadowing mentors and mentors can teach without interfering with their own work. Managers, by contrast, are more distanced from the daily grind and would have to distract themselves from managerial responsibilities to train new hires.
Training new employees need not deplete critical company resources. By following any or all of the above suggestions, companies simultaneously can conserve time, save money, and yield production. Just watch the scale tip in your favor.
About the Author:
Linda Finkle is a leading expert on organizational communication strategies and human potential development. As CEO of her executive coaching firm, Incedo Group, Linda has helped countless leaders build internal communication and conflict resolution strategies. She brings about changes in attitude and leadership style that yield dramatic results. Company profitability is an inevitable side effect. Learn more at http://www.IncedoGroup.com
Welcome to my new blog. This is where I will chronicle the next phase of mis-adventures of my life. Thank you for staying on the ride, and for you newcomers to the inside of my mental mania, I will do my best to make sure the trip is both entertaining and educational.
Life In Fast Forward: The Blog is still a bit of a work in progress. Keep checking in for new posts and site updates.
About Blog
This blog supports some of the thoughts and interjections from the folks at Fast Forward Business Properties. Our ideas, things we test, and a few random thoughts will show up here.
Name: J. Cleveland Payne
Home: Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
About Me: News is my profession, so it only fits that I am a news junkie. I'm a radio show/segment producer for a news/talk radio station in Little Rock, Arkansas.
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